Charity Auction Advice

[sleepypandie.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about setting up a charity commission auction to go towards orlando shooting victims / the community. I think oneorlando.org is set up by the mayor and looks credible?

Anyways what I had in mind was something alone the structure of:
- artist(s) can offer different kinds of noncommercial, for personal use commissions within a time limit
- bids will happen within a timeframe by anyone who's interested

I've seen this done before but never actually organized anything along this scale.

So questions:
1) In the end who would handle the money?
When I did charity commissions before by myself, I had commissioners send the sum to me and I donated the entire lump sum via paypal charity holiday event because it added a 1% to the total. It took me 1-2 months to finish them all though, which was super exhausting.

I think most of the commissioners last time knew me and trusted me to donate the full amount (I also have records of all transactions, but wasn't sure if I needed to post them publicly).

With multiple artists this seems like it might get messy?

I was thinking of having commissioners donate straight to the website and send a confirmation, but then if the artwork wasn't delivered then they would have no recourse.

2) Is there any legal issue/TOS that would need to be written up in order to do this? I was thinking just within artists that I know(?) and not a huge open to everyone approach. But even then I'm unsure about what it would mean.

3) Organization - where is the best place to hold this?
I think I/friends have the biggest following on dA, but with dA journal comments being editable, would that be an issue? It does keep a log of previous edits though.

Sorry for the amateurish questions!
I'm just trying to gauge how large of an effort this would be before getting any bigger ideas.

Thanks for reading!

Comments

[chaossal.livejournal.com]

I think having commissioners donate straight to the website and sending a confirmation is the best action to take. All the artist involved should agree beforehand that if someone does not do their part they will be blocked, reported and another artiest is allowed to take over the artwork to make sure the donator's get their art.

If the artist themselves will be getting the money to donate it all in a large sum a contract should be written up to make sure all money goes to the charity.

For the most people to see it I would put it on all sites the artist are on and just make a list on like Trello or something like it.

[sleepypandie.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your suggestions!

I think we're going to go with direct donation to charity and not have an intermediary hold onto the cash.

As for trello, I'm not super familiar with it in context of using it as an auctioning/commenting platform? I thought its like a kanban system? (I might be wrong) Would you mind explaining?

[chaossal.livejournal.com]

I was thinking you could use it to list all the names of people who donated and from where. Like Kitty12 - $35 DA

[ime2667.livejournal.com]

I actually just did this. I did a stream and the donators sent money directly to me and then I donated it in a lump sum, adding on about $20 of my own to make up for fees and such.

I do agree donating directly to the charity is probably a better idea, but through paypal it's easier to tell who has paid and who hasn't just from an organization standpoint.

I also donated to the gofundme since I think it was proven to be credible. I'm not sure if it's still up though. As far as the multiple artists go, can't say I have much help to give there.

[sleepypandie.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the heads up about the Ilgofundme! I saw 2 big ones that were registered charities but wasnt sure how long they'd be up/how much gofundme takes to process?

I think we're going to go with having people donate directly to a fund rather than have an intermediary step because its easier/looks more credible.

[hanabikun.livejournal.com]

I have done many charity drives of this nature before. I have people donate directly to the site, though in y case the site actually shows who donated and how much even if its just "Anonymous". This way no one believes its a scam AND they get the tax refund as it is a legitimate charity.

From the multiple artists standpoint, for my thing each artist handles their own money or they have me tell the client to donate to the website and I let the artist know when it goes through. It depends if the artist agrees to either 100% of the proceeds or just some of the proceeds.

[sleepypandie.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your input! I think artists are agreeing to 100% of proceeds so it would make sense to donate straight to the charity and just have them fwd a confirmation when it goes through

[kayla-la.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, I have participated in multiple events like this where you donate to charities and get art from multiple artists. Almost every time, the end result is that I get art from one or two of the artists at best. I have never once received all of the art I was owed. It seems that trying to get a group of artists to all do their part is like herding cats.

That is definitely something you should prepare for. Since the donation is to charity, a refund would be a bit tacky to expect, so I can't think of much of a recourse beyond blacklisting.

[sleepypandie.livejournal.com]

Ah yeah I 100% feel you, which was why I was thinking about having someone hold onto the money in case of refunds. But that potentially is a lot of money and looks kind of shady.

To try to counter this issue I'm trying to only ask/screen for artists that I know and that have a good commission history and ask for 1 piece each.

Other than that I guess I would prepare blacklist at last recourse too.

We'll see how goes, but thanks for the heads up!

[koulagirl666.livejournal.com]

Similar events which I've been involved with don't set time requirements or just leave it to the people involved to sort out, which sucks when people (either side) say 'whenever!' and never follow up.

So perhaps before jumping straight a blacklist, at least set out an expected timeline? (For example: If you are offering art in this event, it is expected that you provide a finished piece as agreed within x time.) And what would a blacklist do, anyway, for it to be a deterrent?

[cy mendoza (from livejournal.com)]

Be very careful when accepting money for donations to your own PayPal account, if that's what you plan to do. PayPal will shut your account down if they catch wind of you doing that. The best option is always to direct the customer to the charity and ask them for a receipt of donation.

Of course, you can always take sales (for your own work) and accept the money to PayPal and pay a percentage that you feel is appropriate to the charity, in line with what you were advertising. But absolutely do not solicit money from other people with the intent or promise of donating it to the charity. That has gotten popular YouTube/Streamers shut down before.