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Comment by tghw | Hacker News Reader

Don't donate through Facebook. Their processes are pretty unfriendly to the charity receiving the money. They float the money for an unspecified amount of time, which hurts charities' cash flow. They provide less donor data, so charities can't thank donors or reach out to them again in the future. And if it's a personal fundraiser, even if the money goes to charity, Facebook does charge fees.

Just give directly to the charity. If you're concerned about the fees, just cover them yourself. Industry standard is 2.9% + $0.30.

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I run https://hackclub.com, which has received donations via Facebook, through Stripe on our website (https://hackclub.com/donate), through individuals, foundations, and donor-advised funds writing checks, through systems like Benevity (https://www.benevity.com) that facilitate corporate matching programs and send the funds via ACH, and probably through nearly every other method out there.

Here's a breakdown of our processing fees:

* Facebook: None. They cover the credit card fee. If you're interested to see what data nonprofits get from Facebook, here's exactly what I see for our 2018 fundraisers: https://i.imgur.com/lsCFqJh.png. Facebook has not taken noticeably longer to disburse funds than foundations we've worked with.

* Stripe donations: 2.2% + $0.30 for Visa / Mastercard, 3.5% for American Express (this is the nonprofit rate)

* Receiving checks: $25/check. We outsource receiving checks to a vendor to make sure they don't get lost and that we aways have scans on file.

* Benevity / electronic transfers / wires: None (our bank charges no wire fee)

On top of that, it's important to note that checks and manual ACH / wire transfers take the most processing time for me, as for each check I need to work with our accountants to ensure donor information is properly on file and the donor received any needed tax documentation. We're small enough where I'm still doing this myself for each check, which probably takes me 20-30 minutes for each donation. Up to an hour if the donor didn't include all their tax information with the check.

I'm curious as to why Facebook eat the credit card fee? Do you know why they absorb that cost?

No, sorry. I imagine it's a comms problem. I did find this article from 2017 on it, which might provide more info: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-zuckerberg/faceb...

Interesting, thank you

> If you're concerned about the fees, just cover them yourself. Industry standard is 2.9% + $0.30.

I can recognise, from the links in this blog and other posts on the same blog like [1], that the author is giving a double-digit percentage of their income to charity. Maybe as much as 50%.

A person earning $100,000 and giving $50,000 to charity who paid a 2.9% card fee would be giving $1450 to a credit card processor - money that could have gone to the charity had they simply done a bank transfer instead.

Of course, for many charity donors paying by credit card is fine - better a moderately efficient donation that happens than a highly efficient donation that doesn't happen because of the inconvenience barrier!

[1] https://www.jefftk.com/p/earning-to-give-transcript

Yes, if you're giving enough that the credit card fees are substantial, then you should be using another payment method. At worst, mail them a check. There's nothing better for a small non-profit than to open a letter containing a large and unexpected donation check.

In my experience, most people making gifts >$25,000 are either making them through a foundation or through a donor-advised fund, both of which almost always write checks.

> They provide less donor data, so charities can't thank donors or reach out to them again in the future.

wait, facebook does something to help me maintain my privacy? i hate giving some place $25 and then getting monthly mail for the next 10 years.

You can always unsubscribe. I prefer that option vs going through Facebook.

I was expecting this comment.

Charities send mail because it helps them raise money, and it's one place that direct mail still works, and it works well. You can call the org and have them take you off their mailing list. I would just ask that if you do, also set up a recurring donation. One time donations are nice, recurring donations are better.

But if you're more comfortable giving Facebook more data about you (donations contain a lot of information) but not giving that data to the charity, why are you donating to them in the first place?

> Charities send mail because it helps them raise money

not every activity that helps you raise money is something you should do, even if you're a charity.

if they'd confine themselves to pestering donors who'd given them >$500, or even donated more than once, it'd be one thing.

> You can call the org and have them take you off their mailing list.

been there, tried that. less effective than you'd like me to believe! (and then they've got my phone number, too.)

> But if you're more comfortable giving Facebook more data about you (donations contain a lot of information) but not giving that data to the charity, why are you donating to them in the first place?

i don't care if the charity knows who i am; i don't care if anyone (facebook or otherwise) knows about my donations.

i care that the charities will pester me for YEARS because i gave them less money than they'll spend printing out the wads of full color mail they'll send me.

You create second-time donors by persistently contacting first-time donors.

Are you asking why people don’t want to sign up for getting spammed by charities? Just because it’s easy to unsubscribe doesn’t mean I want to have to do that.

I just want to help out a non profit. My recurring donation is that they don’t need to waste money to spam me anymore.

I’m looking you you, blood banks.

> [Facebook] provides less donor data, so charities can't thank donors or reach out to them again in the future.

As a donor, I've found myself giving more often through Facebook to keep my contact information more private. I tend to unsubscribe from mailing lists and set up Gmail filters, so perhaps I'm more sensitive to unsolicited mail than average.

In my experience, most of the charities and institutions I've donated to directly (e.g. Red Cross, National Park Foundation, my university) send mail for years after a donation. Some of them like the National Park Foundation share your information with other charities so you get even more unsolicited mail.

In contrast, as far as I can tell, I haven't received any physical mail nor email after donating through Facebook. The privacy, for lack of a better word, is compelling enough I'd prefer to look up a charity on Facebook rather than going to their website directly.

I just donated through FB to see how it works. It looks like FB gives the user an opt-in to share info with the charities. I like this, because I get spammed all the time by previous charitable donations.

Can’t speak to the payment timelines, but the fact that fb gives me more control is nice.

Also, from their documentation, it looks like nonprofits do see my name. The opt in is for sharing my email.

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