How To Trade Off?

I spent some more time looking at the websites I listed yesterday.

So far, I like Microgiving.com the most. The transactions are done via PayPal, and they charge $0.10 for every transaction (I hope I read that correctly, need to double-check).  I registered yesterday on that website.

It seems we can proceed in two ways:
(a) ask for donation as an individual (or, may be a group).
(b) ask for donation as a non-profit organization.

It seems the option (a) is easier to get us started. The individual receiving the funds needs to fill out a W-9 form which just confirms his/her Tax ID number via IRS. The question is, will the individual be liable to tax?

Option (b) needs more start-up work. Need to form an organization, register it as a non-profit organization, and follow certain other steps. Is it worth the effort, if we are doing the fund-raising just once?

I am just starting to realize a key thing - I will definitely need help even in setting up the fundraising event (in addition to seeking individual help for spreading the word). I am planning to send out a common email to some potential candidates, and see if they have time for this or not. I have a feeling that the biggest obstacle in going down this path is to get some sort of a time commitment from the volunteers, at least in the beginning phase. It would take an extreme form of self-discipline to regularly and voluntarily find time for this kind of an activity.

Doing Our Initial Research

Here are some links I found worth reading.

If we just want to focus on the fund-raising aspect of it, we need to read more about:

http://www.microgiving.com/
http://www.giveforward.org/
http://www.wikihow.com/Start-a-Charity

Here is another link to get started on how to accept credit card on your website. It seems that this is more geared toward selling tangible items.

http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/creditcards.shtml

Here's a link for a more grandiose idea - to start a non-profit organization. I took a quick glance and it seems there are various important aspects we should know about. Is this worth the effort?

http://managementhelp.org/strt_org/strt_np/strt_np.htm

Website?

Is there a website which can provide a service for people to donate funds, say using a credit card?

I heard about active.com regarding this from a friend (probably used to collect funds for Vibha). Do you know more about this?

Ideally, I'd like to have the mechanism ready to collect donations (in the easiest possible way) before reaching out to people.

About Us

I added some more information in the "About Us" page. I thought these would be relevant to share.

Thanks,
Suvo

Asking for help

Dear Friends,

I have been trying to get started with this fund-raising effort for the last few months. But every time I sit down to think about how to proceed, I get stuck. I just can't figure out where to start.

I was wondering if you can help me with this.

You are welcome to post your ideas and comments on this blog. You can also send me an email at subhabrata.ganguli@gmail.com.

Thanks,
Suvo