charity kickstarter

[eggman]

Hello, After I saw the water deck be made with procedes going to a good cause it got me thinking. I have a few friends that were fortunate to make some dispendable cash. We take certain Charitites each year and both volunteer and place financial donations. Please let me be up front it is Catholic organizations where 90% of donations received go to help the needy with housing medical treatment etc. The water deck gave me a great idea. I am currently talking to a few artist. I am willing to pay them for the work they put in comming up with a card, they have presented me a few rought drafts and the only thing I expect them to do is design the cards I pay them for there time, get the cards put on kickstarter or have a limited run done at USPC which I will pay for. My qustion is, is it possible that I could even make money for a cause doing it this way. Please help

[Robert Butler]

Kickstarter prohibits any projects that involve charity.  You would have to do that on your own.

[Evan]

Also, the lowest amount of decks you can have printed is 5,000 and thats gonna be a lot of money.

[Don Boyer]

And why on Earth would you be interested in getting profit from a deal to raise money for a charity!?!?  That's not exactly what I'd call charitable.

[lordlupus]

Mate, I think he meant make profits to give to the charity. He still has to pay USPCC and the artists.

[Don Boyer]

Whoops - my bad.  I should have read more carefully.

There's a risk involved in creating a premium as part of a charity giveaway - "Donate $X and will give you this fine widget."  The cash for the widgets has to be put up front, then you have to hope the project returns enough for the charity to get the widgets paid for AND get a reasonable amount of cash back to the charity.  There's a lot of work and cost outlays involved in making a deck of playing cards.

You could keep it simple by having decks made through the Bicycle Personalized Playing Cards program.  The only customization is the deck back and they cost $20 a pop, but you can order as little as you want.

Frankly, unless you were willing to eat the production costs of the decks, making something like playing cards for a fundraiser may not me the best way to go to get the majority of the money to the charity.  From what I can tell, that's what's being done on the "Charity: Water" deck, and that's what was done on other relief decks like "Hope for Japan" and "Hope for Haiti".  Otherwise, the decks become prohibitively expensive, requiring you to request a larger donation to receive them, which in turn makes the donors ask if they're willing to put out that much cash, even if they are getting a snazzy deck of cards in return.

[eggman]

Certainly there exist other ways to go about this but I was thinking of combining my card collecting and love of cards with charity work I already do. Not only would I have to pay production but I would also have to pay the artist I would hire to design the cards. I do have one or two I am speaking with so it is possible. I do not think kickstarter can say what I do with them once I have paid them of exetra but now that you mentioned it if I am willing to pay production myself it makes no sense to use kickstarter. Alright, sometimes you need to hear the obvious. If I am able to do this it would be great. If I give it my best shot I guess that is all that matters. My main goals now are picking one of my artist who will not jack me and make this thing impossible. Perhaps I will post some pictures. Thanks guys. Maybe I will end up with 5,000 decks im my garage :'(

[xela]

Certainly there exist other ways to go about this but I was thinking of combining my card collecting and love of cards with charity work I already do. Not only would I have to pay production but I would also have to pay the artist I would hire to design the cards. I do have one or two I am speaking with so it is possible. I do not think kickstarter can say what I do with them once I have paid them of exetra but now that you mentioned it if I am willing to pay production myself it makes no sense to use kickstarter. Alright, sometimes you need to hear the obvious. If I am able to do this it would be great. If I give it my best shot I guess that is all that matters. My main goals now are picking one of my artist who will not jack me and make this thing impossible. Perhaps I will post some pictures. Thanks guys. Maybe I will end up with 5,000 decks im my garage :'(

Kickstarter can't tell you how you spend your earnings, but they can delete your project or not approve it if you advertise it as a charity, which is what you would need to do. Consider another funding platform instead.

[eggman]

Yes, that is fine thank you for the info. I have a few people I am talking to. I was actually thinking I could start it at kickstarter and put up the costs with a friend of mine who is helping with the financial end of the project. I now realize that would make no sense. We were planning on paying the production part 2,500-5,000 decks on our own but I was ready to rush into it head first. Along with production would be the cost to pay the artist which I figure would be over one thousand as he is not part of our charity plan but is agreeing to work with us. Anyway, on another forum someone contacted me about the production piece. I guess the kickstarter idea shows my lack of knowledge in these things.

[Don Boyer]

If you've never made a deck before, trying to make one as a charity project might be too big of a challenge to bite off.  Try simply raising money that goes straight to the charity instead of into the pockets of the artist, the card manufacturer, etc. first before the charity can get paid.

[eggman]

Thanks, I have done a lot of things for Charity ie raising and giving money. I have purchased many things to sell at austions or traveled to help set up medical and or housing facilities. I am just looking into going this route as something different. I am just in the gathering intel stage. Business is not my strongpoint so I rely on a lot of advice in various stages of any project. Do not get me wrong, I am not a wealthy phianthropist but I have been fortunate enough to be able to help others. Thanks again.

[Don Boyer]

You can still pursue this idea.  But you need someone with business savvy, and you need people willing to volunteer their services (and possibly cash and materials) who want to help the same organization and cause.  Rather than Kickstarting this project, see about finding people willing to donate to get it off the ground, then sell the decks to raise funds for the charity.  A good deck is expensive - there are other manufacturers than USPC to consider if you want to control costs.

[eggman]

I am willing to fund the entire project myself. I did recently have a friend join me wanting to help pay for it. The people I know in business are investigating various options to get them printed. The artist will be payed cash out of my pocket which although it messes up my tax deduction I like to help struggling artists. The art I have checked out this far is adequate but not there yet. If the guy spends a lot of time on the rough I will pay him a bit but the pay day will not be until the final decision. Anyway, thanks for your comments, I realize you guys are trying to help. I have a few more artist to talk to this week and I feel confident things will get moving along. In case this entire thing goes belly up I have a great opportunity for the artist we decide to work with which makes me happy as I always like to help the stuggleing artist and musicians. Thanks again for all the feed back :-X