Kickstarter.com is a website where people can post about projects that need funding.\u00a0 Other folks can look at the projects and pledge money to them.\u00a0 If a project meets their target goal for pledges then the money transfers.<\/p>\n
I was working on a Kickstarter project for our transmitter and studio equipment.\u00a0 Things went pretty well until I got to the payment part.\u00a0 Kickstarter uses Amazon for their payment handling.\u00a0 That’s good.\u00a0 I went to Amazon Payments, put in all sorts of information, gave them our bank account info, I thought we were ready to go.\u00a0 But then they told me that, since I selected “non-profit” as our business type, I had to have a 501(c)(3) determination letter from the IRS.. and send them a copy.<\/p>\n
Well.<\/p>\n
When we started this thing we created a non-profit corporation in the State of Mississippi.\u00a0 We added the recommended paragraphs to our incorporation documents that the IRS wants for 501(c)(3) charity non-profits.\u00a0 But we also saw that the IRS says you can act as a 501(c)(3) for 27 months or until you gross more than $5000 over one year.\u00a0 Until that time you do not need a determination.\u00a0 If someone walked in here today and wanted to give us $50, I could tell them truthfully that we are a charity and their gift is tax-deductible.<\/p>\n
The problem is that the IRS wants $400 to\u00a0 get the letter of determination.\u00a0 And we don’t have $400 that we wanted to spend on that.\u00a0\u00a0 So we didn’t.\u00a0 And we don’t have the letter of determination and Amazon Payments won’t let us be a non-profit on their system.<\/p>\n
That kind of grinds my bunions.\u00a0 I told Amazon Payments they were discriminating against small non-profits, and they are.<\/p>\n
So now I have shifted my focus to Indiegogo, another crowd-funding website.\u00a0 They don’t use Amazon Payments, so I won’t fall into that again.\u00a0 They give a discount to registered<\/em> 501(c)(3) organizations and I saw that trap waiting for me and didn’t step in it.\u00a0 A discount would be nice.\u00a0 But, again, $400.<\/p>\n I have not made it all the way through the Indiegogo setup yet, so there may be something waiting to crush me.\u00a0 But I hope not.\u00a0 My next big endeavor is to create a video that presents our project.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kickstarter.com is a website where people can post about projects that need funding.\u00a0 Other folks can look at the projects and pledge money to them.\u00a0 If a project meets their target goal for pledges then the money transfers. I was working on a Kickstarter project for our transmitter and studio equipment.\u00a0 Things went pretty well … Continue reading Kickstarter Woes — Indiegogo to the rescue?<\/span>