GOFUNDME - a platform for collecting funds for personal purposes

There are several well-known world crowdfunding platforms. Kickstarter and Indiegogo occupy the first place on project fees. After successful fees implies that the project must be completed.

But there is another type of fees - for personal purposes . The first place among such sites is GoFundMe . “People use GoFundMe to raise money for weddings, funerals and everything that happens between these events” [ 1 ]. Indeed, the boy collects money for his first PC , a collection for a diesel engine for a mobile home , and a MacBook was stolen from the musician Michel .
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In Russian sources [ 2 ] they write that the platform is global, and you can start collecting from anywhere in the world. If you live in the USA, you can get your money through the payment system WePay. All others work through PayPal. And if so, that I also decided to try to organize a collection for personal purposes.

My goal

For several months I have been developing a modular platform based on FPGA, on the basis of which it will be possible to assemble digital and analog synthesizers. A lot of work has been done (mainly in the digital part), but even more remains. However, musicians do not like the “number”, the synthesizer must be “analog”. To do this, you need to make analog blocks: filters (VCF), amplifiers (VCA). To debug these modules, an oscilloscope is very necessary, and my 85-year oscilloscope, Release 85–199, is already very bad (not synchronized). That is, in fact, the goal - to raise funds for the purchase of an oscilloscope for the project .

Creating your own company

Creating your company is very simple. With the help of the wizard specify the amount, project name, color. We connect with the account on facebook, twitter and with contacts from your mail. This is followed by a description of what the company is about. It's very simple: a few clicks and the company is ready!


I was pleased to have the opportunity to create a wish list for my company:

Where do donors come from?

The platform immediately reports that your friends and friends of your friends are potential donors for your gathering. Therefore, it is very important to report on the collection on their pages on social networks. About the project must necessarily know as many people as possible. There is even a form for printing paper ads.

What to do next?

In the process of fees it is necessary to keep the public informed, create news. With the help of the platform, these news can be automatically reposted to yourself on facebook and twitter.

Small Offtop: A Simple Alternative From PayPal

In the meantime, people safely receive fees at gofundme.com, I decided to check the technical part of how the withdrawal works. And what are the other alternatives. As it turned out, any PayPal user can create a “Donate” button and hang it on his website. Using this button, anyone (simply by entering the card number) can transfer you any (or fixed) amount to your PayPal wallet. Testing has shown that you cannot create a button by transferring donations to USD. You can only send rubles.

A button looks like this:


For verification, we send ourselves 35 rubles. Money written off. A few minutes and now they have come:


Click Accept. And we see a dialogue in which we must choose: 1) to accept and convert to USD; 2) accept in rubles and create an account in this currency; 3) wrap the payment back


As a result, we get 23.63 rubles, minus 11.37 rubles in favor of PayPal. Fine! The method works.

Withdrawals from GoFundMe

Faced with small dollar issues at PayPal, I decided to see the technical part of withdrawing money from GoFundMe. As a payment system, I immediately put down an American WePay. No matter how I tried, I could not change it to PayPal. If nothing happens, then you need to read the instructions. It turns out that GoFundMe refused to work with PayPal. And I can't create a WePay.



Moreover, my country - Russia - is not supported by the platform!



Honestly, I am a little indignant that I can only learn about such technical problems deeply in the documentation. What if a miracle and money collected? How to display them? I believe that the restrictions on the country should be reported immediately.

And it was necessary to begin with FAQ geektimes.ru/post/242544 (TNX TO Beltoev )

Is my country supported?
Supported countries include: United States of America ($ USD), United Kingdom (£ GBP), Canada ($ CAD), Australia ($ AUD), and some countries ).

findings

GoFundMe.com platform does not work for Russia.

List of used sources

1. crowdsourcing.ru/article/kraudfandingovaya_platforma_gofundme_preodolela_otmetku_v_100_mln_intervyu_s_soosnovatelem
2. crowdsourcing.ru/sites/29