Boards.ie Ukraine Appeal - Fundlocal.ie

Boards.ie: Odhran

Hi all,

We have decided to push our new fundraiser platform, fundlocal.ie, live. It is not 100% complete, however due to the urgency of the situation in Ukraine we have decided to push ahead. We will share more information about the site and what we hope to achieve over the coming days and have included below 'What is fundlocal going forward' explains what how things will work after this campaign.

Boards.ie Ukraine Appeal

Millions of lives in Ukraine are being torn apart. Boards.ie is supporting the Red Cross who have teams on the ground in Ukraine and will continue their work to repair vital infrastructure, support health facilities and help families with life-saving food and hygiene items.

Fundlocal was originally developed to help local communities in Ireland create fundraisers, by giving people access to our unique platform where like minded people could support the people and causes they care about. Nick Mankovskyi and his team in Ukraine developed this platform with us, so it is important for us that we get things live as soon as possible and see if we can help. NB - Boards.ie will not be taking any fees / charges from funds raised on behalf of Ukraine Appeal.

We were not really ready to launch (just some onboarding issues etc) but given the circumstances we feel compelled to go live, warts and all, so please bear with us if there's any teething issues issues.

The crisis in Ukraine is rapidly evolving and any small donation you can afford will help those affected to get food, medicine, shelter and water. Your support will also help the Red Cross to assist those displaced by conflict. Boards.ie will be passing all funds raised to the Red Cross.

Any amount would be greatly appreciated and 100% of funds raised will go direct to the Red Cross. If you are in a position to do so you can donate here.

Thank you from all of us at Boards.ie

Some information about fundlocal below - we will add more info to this asap.

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What is Fund Local going forward?

Fundlocal was developed to help local communities in Ireland create fundraisers by giving people access to our unique platform on Boards where like-minded people can support the people and causes they care about.

• What’s in this for the Boards?

Boards.ie is all about communities and people who come together to talk about topics and interests that are important to them.  Local fundraisers touch us all - from the local GAA club to a sick family member and Boards provides a unique platform to allow like minded people to support the people and causes they care about.

• How do Boards make money from it?  (*for future fundraisers only, not for Ukrainian Red Cross appeal)

Boards make a small fee on each transaction that goes through the platform.  All online payments are subject to credit card processing fees - we have arranged a preferential fee so that we make a small fee on each transaction.  If for instance one wanted to donate €10 to a charity of their choice.  There are two options:

1.  Donating €10 and not covering the transaction fee will mean that the charity of your choice will receive €9.50 as we take the credit card processing fees (ie what we have to pay to Stripe/Adyen) and our margin out of the total.  That covers our development costs and hopefully if we get some volume a little bit more.
2.  Donating €10 and AND covering the transaction fee will mean that the charity of your choice will receive €10 but it will cost you €10.50.  As above we deduct the credit card processing fees and our margin out of the total - but transfer the full €10 to the charity.  

• Where is the money held/who by? What are their company credentials?

The money is held by Javelin Payments Ltd - a payment processing company who partner with Adyen.  Javelin and Boards.ie have a common shareholder which means Boards avails of a preferential rate.

• If I create a fundraiser from a link on Boards, will you be able to link it to my Boards account and/or real name

Users will have to register on fundlocal using their name, address etc.  That is a standard requirement for all sites that process payments.  It’s to combat fraud etc.  You do not have to associate your Boards account with your page - nor will they be linked unless you do so yourself.

• Who will have access to that information?

The only people that can access your account information are Javelin Payments Ltd and Adyen

• How can you be sure that people won’t abuse this and raise money for their holiday to Dubai instead of the animal charity they said it was for?

No more than any peer to peer fundraisers, we cannot police if payments are submitted to the charity / donation cause by the organiser.  However all fundraisers have to go through KYC processes (Know Your Customer) and we thoroughly investigate any complaints made in this regard.

• Is there a limit as to how much can be raised/asked for?

There is no limit however we advise organisers to set realistic and achievable goals.

• Do you liaise directly with charities or how can you be sure the money goes to the right place?

It is the responsibility of the organisers to transfer funds to the right place.  We can of course check upon requests that funds have been transferred per events organised on our site.

• Who owns FundLocal?

Fundlocal the domain is owned by Boards.ie.  similar to how other SaaS white label platforms work, The platform is owned by Javelin Payments Ltd where one of our owners is a shareholder.

• What’s the catch?

We charge a fee for processing credit card payments. We take a very small margin to help cover development costs and hopefully generate some new income for Boards.ie.  Since the values are so small we would need massive traction for Boards to benefit from this product.  We see it as a great community feature that might help pay for some bills. As an example, a €100 donation where the fees are covered means Boards shares in the gross profit on €2.29 less our transaction fees…. So we will need a lot of €100’s to buy a catch :)

Just to reiterate this only applies to future fund raisers and the above does not apply to Ukraine Appeal where full donations go to Red Cross.

Leg End Reject

I totally get that Boards needs to generate an income, but I think under the circumstances you should consider just covering costs, rather than generating a profit (regardless of how small).

This is an unprecedented event, one I didn't expect to see in my lifetime. It will have a life-long psychological impact on the people of Ukraine as well as the financial cost associated with the destruction. I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like for those who live there.

Boards.ie: Odhran

@Leg End Reject thanks raising this its a great point.

We rushed getting this out last night so didn’t make it clear apologies for that. The model above is just an example of how it will work in future but not this appeal

We are passing on 100% of ALL fees generated and not taking any profit.

Leg End Reject

That's fantastic @Boards.ie: Odhran, hopefully the community gets behind this.

Hibernicis

Hi Odhran, this is a great idea.

Is it possible to donate using a pseudonym, and if so how ?

And a suggested correction to your notes above. Under the heading How do Boards make money from it? The second point “Donating €10 and AND covering the transaction fee will mean that the charity of your choice will receive €9.50 but it will cost you €10.50.” should probably read “Donating €10 and AND covering the transaction fee will mean that the charity of your choice will receive €10.00 but it will cost you €10.50.”

Cheers

Boards.ie: Odhran

Ah thanks for that @Hibernicis - I’ll update.

You can donate as anonymous or using own name or pseudonym …

when donating it will ask for your name or you can check anon box!

Purgative

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118733544#Comment_118733544

Of course, but this is easier, its a reminder, a conscience jogger, a sense that the Boards family cares about wider humanity.

Anyway €794 raised so far - good job.

fritzelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118734760#Comment_118734760

Says in the OP no charge, all funds go to the Red Cross, sorry but still seems a bit naff to use it to promote another venture by Odhran - a simple post along the lines of donate to the Red Cross directly would have been the way to go

The fee numbers don't agree above.

fritzelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118735148#Comment_118735148

I would assume that is just a mess up in a hastily constructed post - doesn't take much to work it out

It's usually better not to assume and have a reread in this type of circumstance.

Point 1 has the fee income being €0.12 of a total fee reduction of €0.50, with the balance being the payment processor fee.

Further down it says boards take 50% of the €0.50 fee.

brokenangel

I don’t understand how the original post can be so confusing. The war started days ago so how is it put together so hastily? A number of updates to the post yet it still give details on how boards makes money

plus how much is this subco taking seems unclear?

it says no fee, then down later it clearly says Boards.ie is making money from it. Plus it seems to be advertisement for some other subco

To me it suggests boards is using the war to promote some random company while trying to be as vague as possible on who and what are taking a bit of the pie , hopefully I’m wrong but as mentioned why not just ask people to donate directly without a middle man?

Boards.ie: Odhran

1. @fritzelly Way off the mark. This is developed by a team of developers we work closely with in Ukraine. So we will absolutely use it to raise funds for this cause regardless of comments of it being naff or otherwise.
2. @Lion Killer Boards are not taking any fees whatsoever. I have already stated that several times.
3. Post was indeed hastily put together and as I have again stated already - we will fix that. @Hibernicis kindly sent some suggested text which we will include. To be clear once more … We are not taking any fees from this campaign or trying to encourage people to use it for others.
4. @brokenangel I won’t justify your last comment with a reply and hope this clears up any misunderstanding.

Good news however we have raised over €800 so far so thanks to everyone who has shared the link and donated so far.

ctrl-alt-delete

Is this GDPR compliant?

Obviously I joke. Great work and fair play to those who have developed and donated.

Once boards take a fee and the Javelin limited take a fee and the payment processors take a fee and it goes to the next party along the chain with other fees being taken for payment processor fees and admin how much of my €10 get to people on the ground who need food and shelter and transport and how long will it take?

How much of my €10 would reach these people if I donate it directly to the Red Cross at the link donate.redcross.ie?

Your heart is in the right place and your intentions are noble but ultimately the aim should be to get the maximum amount to those who need it as quickly as possible and from what I can see the red cross are the main charity on the ground in Ukraine both in terms of food and medical care.

Promote the hell out of the Red Cross.

db

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118740828#Comment_118740828

If you read the thread you would see that boards will not be taking any fee. The OP sets out how the platform will work if you out I were to set up a fundraiser, it was clarified later that 100% would be passed on. I think boards got involved because the developers of the fundlocal platform are Ukrainian.

I appreciate those points. The boards fee is just one fee along the chain.

It would be better to get the maximum amount of money/aid to the Ukrainian people as quickly as possible.

Anyway, I've said my bit on this, I just wanted to suggest that the original post requires correction and clarification on the fee structure and it is up to each individual who to donate to.

Boards.ie: Odhran

Thanks all - original post has been cleaned up so hopefully it is clearer now.

Boards is not charging any fees on Ukraine Appeal. All funds will go directly to Red Cross and we will be transferring that every few days to get money over quickly. Thanks to all that have donated so far - the total raised currently stands at €1,219!

Hibernicis

Odhran, the total amount raised (currently €1,219) does not tally with the total of all donations (currently 15 listed with a total of €1,025)

Suggest you get the developers to correct this before any of your fans from above accuse you of pocketing the difference !

Boards.ie: Odhran

:) thanks @Hibernicis ... agh we ran through some test transactions using dummy cards when the campaign went live and they are being counted but since removed. Total is counting them also. Bad news is its a lower total now ... but we will make it back. Thanks for pointing out.

Every cloud.... Test transactions are in backend but not counted towards total. The link says "See all (15) donors", but it's limited to 15 entries. So we are only showing only the latest 15 contributions, even though there are many more. Its a frontend fix and we will get it sorted tomorrow. So.... back up and now at €1,224.

Dempo1

I'm perplexed at this focus on fee's wether they exist of not and i think its been laid out pretty clearly Boards is not getting any fee's.

Begrudging what I believe is a Genuine effort by the Boards management team to create another outlet for people to make a donation to this worthwhile cause is to be welcomed & commended and I congratulate the team on their efforts .

Red Hare

Arra, What's all that suspicion about?

Help those people now.Mol an OigeUkrainians agus tiochaidh siad.

deise08

You say it was developed by a team in Ukraine, I hope they are all safe.

Eggonyerface

Good idea. I would just say however if anyone has revolut you can donate to the red cross through that and they match your donation *edit* scrap that it was matched up to 1.5 million and there's 4.2 donated so far. Wow

Pelvis Parsley

I don't think anyone suspects Boards of malice-merely incompetence, which in my view is completely justified. This is compounded all the more by an inability to communicate properly, and a clumsy (sorry folks, but it is) attempt to shoehorn their own version of GoFundMe into the whole thing.

Just donate directly folks. Don't analyse it, criticise it, or try to fix it. It is what it is.

Boards.ie: Odhran

Thanks @Pelvis Parsley. I have acknowledged the initial message was not clear and we have rectified that.

I am however happy to say that €1,303 has been donated so far.

Boards.ie: Niamh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118746360#Comment_118746360

Just to acknowledge that this issue is being worked on this morning, it is still showing 15 donors on the donation page but there have been more than that. Will post back when it has been rectified.

Hacktheback

@Leg end reject could you pm me please

Boards.ie: Niamh

There were a lot more than 15 donors, however the panel on the right of the fundraising page is only showing the last 15. It's a bug that needs to be fixed. Users have raised €1,493 so far. If there were only 15 donors that would be the equivalent of (a very generous) €100 each.

Purgative

I see we've managed to add nearly €30 since my post 3 weeks ago.

It really is rather pitiful and when you think about the cause extremely sad.

Boards.ie: Odhran

Yes all funds will go to Ukraine regardless.

The funds raised to-date have already been transferred to Red Cross and a massive thanks to all who have donated so far. We will keep the fundraiser live regardless of how slow.

Leg End Reject

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119214079#Comment_119214079

Huh?

There wasn't a post last night and you have 1 post here.

thecrazybeyondyou

well done everyone

SebastianDahl

That is an awesome initiative

Boards.ie: Mike

Hey all,

I have removed a few posts here that were either deemed to be political or irrelevant to this thread. This thread was set up to provide a way for people to donate to the Ukrainian appeal, not to spark off negative commentary or political views. The OP lines out why this thread was created and what the plans for fundlocal.ie are, going forward, after this appeal.

I also just want to re-iterate to everyone that all donations from this appeal have and will go directly to the Red Cross.

Thanks everyone

-Mike

Whocare

..

michaelgenao

Well done and respect to those that contributed and created.