Can We Help Pakistan?

[10 Yetis]

Ok, so everyone is aware of the tragic events in Pakistan? Bloody terrible.

So, I was thinking... collectively, on this forum we have enough skills between us to do something to help raise money?

No obligation for anyone to join in, I know alot of you do plenty for worthy causes and alike.

The idea I had; similar to Million dollar web page and Neil's great Tartan-Pixels... could we not set something up like "pixels for pakistan"?

We have enough hosting, web design and PR and marketing people here to make it work?

Of course, this is just something that came to me having spoken to Neil, so if anyone has any other any better ways of raising money then shout up.

Do people think it is a go-er? Post below with offers of help if you can.

[Marina Stone]

Perhaps, if anybody receives an order as a result of UKBF, i.e. member to member business, they can donate a %, perhaps 5-10% of the order to a cause?

Ozzy, good PR for UKBF "UKBF members club together to help Pakistan..."

Just an idea,

Marina

[directmarketingadvice]

I'd be happy to make an offer where I'd do consultations for 60% of my normal fee and the client sends 40% to a relief organisation.

One caveat would be that I would want the 40% to go to an organisation which is:

(1) honestly managed - sadly there are charities where organisers are lining their pockets

(2) efficient - as much of the money goes to the people on the ground as can be reasonably expected.

Anyone know an organisation that fits the bill?

Steve

[Cornish Steve]

The idea I had; similar to Million dollar web page and Neil's great Tartan-Pixels... could we not set something up like "pixels for pakistan"?

I think this is a great idea. Start with a giant image and keep selling space until it's covered. There are several benefits to this:

1) It's practical given the web experts who frequent the forums.

2) Covering the picture with logos and links could be symbolic. For example, if the starting image shows some of the mass destruction in the region, our donations would 'cover' the need.

3) Companies contributing to the cause would be clearly visible at the site. The bigger the company's image, the more they donated. (This isn't always a good thing, but it might help to convince some.)

Does anyone reading this have the expertise needed to turn the idea into reality? I'm sure many members would contribute immediately.

[Rob Holmes]

The idea I had; similar to Million dollar web page and Neil's great Tartan-Pixels... could we not set something up like "pixels for pakistan"?

I think this is a great idea. Start with a giant image and keep selling space until it's covered. There are several benefits to this:

1) It's practical given the web experts who frequent the forums.

2) Covering the picture with logos and links could be symbolic. For example, if the starting image shows some of the mass destruction in the region, our donations would 'cover' the need.

3) Companies contributing to the cause would be clearly visible at the site. The bigger the company's image, the more they donated. (This isn't always a good thing, but it might help to convince some.)

Does anyone reading this have the expertise needed to turn the idea into reality? I'm sure many members would contribute immediately.

A script for a pixel site costs $50 and I could host it.

Rob

[10 Yetis]

how much would the URL cost?
and... how could we take payment?

Any ideas?

[Rob Holmes]

well domains are a fiver

We'd need someone with a paypal account to do it.

Rob

[10 Yetis]

Anyone got a paypal account then and would be willing to help? (and is trustworthy?)

So far we have

Hosting: Rob
Pixel Script - $50, me
Paypal account - any volunteers?
URL @ £5 - any volunteers?
Press releases: All us PR's could do our local media?
Anything else?

[Marina Stone]

I'll can do Berkshire PR.

Marina

[10 Yetis]

great stuff.

[Rob Holmes]

PM'd you a link to a script

:)

Rob

[Belladonna]

I will pay for the domain name - someone PM me what you want.

[mumper]

How much is a space or a pixel starting at? Is there a minimum donation or is the sky(and the wallet) the limit?

[10 Yetis]

Mumper,

Hang on there my friend, we are trying to finalise it all.

At the moment we have:

Hosting/designystuf - Rob
Script - me
URL - Belladonna
PR - Marina and I (I am sure there are more PR's out there!!)

We still need:

Paypal account

Any offers? Anyone got one We can use?

[Enigma121]

A couple of issues spring to mind when I consider the payment side of things.

You are attempting to do this for a registered charity (presumably) but payments taken will be direct to a firm - whoever that may be, which presumably isn't a registered charity. Caution advised, the tax man may interpret this as potentially huge income to the firm. Someone could end up with a LARGE tax bill.

Secondly, if using a paypal account, paypal will take a potentially huge cut of the payments.

As a suggestion, it may be appropriate to approach a charity directly to get them to handle the payment received via their paypal / worldpay gateway.

[Asteeleleith]

I have a paypal account, PM me if you need it :-)

but i also equally have Nochex where anyone can donate, do not necessarily need payapl account then. and the procesing fee is lower!

Snag is ppl can only donate up to £100 per day each on nochex.

How safe would it be to use it this way though, no chance of my account being hacked is there
Plus how would i prove i had recieved what i said i had recieved etc. I am am as honest as the day is long but you don't kow that :-)

I would need to know how to pay the monies though.

Al

[Asteeleleith]

Whoops, i just read the previous thread.

I did not think of that, guess i cannot help :-(

Sorry

Al

[Enigma121]

Whoops, i just read the previous thread.

I did not think of that, guess i cannot help :-(

Sorry

Al

Whoooah. Don't want to be a wet blanket, just thinking practically. Maybe some accountants out there could advise for definite on this one ?(it's not my background).

If you are looking for expertise / coding for payment integration with whichever payment gateway you settle on we will offer to help if we can.

[Asteeleleith]

No not a problem, u are far from beng a wet blanket, ur right!

To offer a suggestion, would personal paypal account be of any use? If anyone has anyone?

Al

[Enigma121]

Taking the most direct action I can, I've contacted the Red Cross to request advice on payment processing, now awaiting a response.

Email is as follows.

Hi,

I'm writing on behalf of a group of small businesses with considerable web design expertise in response to the Asian Earthquake Appeal.

We'd like to help by providing a fundraising website which we believe has the potential to raise substantial funds in relation to this appeal. Our issue at present is how to process these funds and pass these directly to the charities that need them (i.e. your own).

Would it be possible to setup a system whereby payment is driven on our site, then processed and paid directly to the Red Cross? We need to ensure that your donation payment is taken before we allow the "facility" we are proposing to provide.

Given the urgency of this appeal, clearly a rapid response to this query would provide maximum benefit. We'd like to help if it's at all possible.

[10 Yetis]

Nice one.
Lets hope thay come back ASAP.

once the payment procesing is sorted I think we have everything ready.

[Belladonna]

yes I was thinking that payments could be made directly to a charity such as www.dec.org.uk perhaps, but we would need to track how much we have raised.

Any thoughts?

[Enigma121]

Yeah, Red Cross are part of DEC anyway, so we'll see what their answer is.

In terms of tracking what's paid to them that's not a biggie. Just add a record to a database / XML file when someone makes a donation, then add all the records up at the end of the day...

Just need the go ahead / details from a charity to make payments direct to their account. Watch this space.

[clairemackaness]

Ok, some suggestioins here. I am sure Paypal would offer a service to charities where they dont take a fee if you ask them or you could set up a new personal account once you get a domain name. Thats way the e-mail and domain would be linked.

I would be happy to donate a piece of art to be auctioned off and am happy to do any other odd little jobs around the house.

[Tauctionshop.co.uk]

Hi guys why don’t you all try what i did make account like I did and it goes into charity account directly you don’t need to go through the script and domain registering stuff if you guys want we can make a page with UKBF name and I will close this page that I have already opened and then we try our best to help these people who suffering from this disaster

http://www.justgiving.com/Tauctionshop

Thanks

[Cornish Steve]

I am sure Paypal would offer a service to charities

A few weeks ago, an employee of NoChex posted several messages to the forums. If someone can remember his name and locate his profile, maybe we can send him an email asking if his company would be willing to help us at no charge.

[Asteeleleith]

hi all
Unless we would contact a charity that is not necesarily a humanitarian one.

I am a member of the British Astronomical Association (which is a registered charity) , and i have contacts there with the current president, perhaps i could as if they could handle it for us?

i will email him and find out

Just a thought

Al

[Asteeleleith]

Hi all,

As promised i have emailed Tom Boles, he is the president of the British astronomical Association

The email i sent is as below

Hi

I just wonder if i might be as bold to run something by.

I am a member of the http://www.ukbusinessforums.co..uk . At the moment we are putting together an appeal with a view to raising money to help assist the victims of the Pakistani Earthquake http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=5458.
We seem to have everything set up, including a website for collecting the money, a domain etc. But one thing we are lacking is a means of collecting donations.

As you can imagine we are all businesses, and therefore not registered charities, so there is no one present within the forum who could collect the money on our behalf.
Someone has contacted Oxfam to see if they can assist, but it seems all option are stil being considered.
After having orignally offered to do it myself, i feel duty bound to ask :-)

I was wondering, and as i say it is a long shot if the BAA (being a registered charity) could assist us by accepting the payment and passing this on to the relevant cause? it would have to be something easily set up i think.
I realise i should perhaps contact the treasurer, however i do not have the email address to hand.

Any suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated.

Kindest Regards

Alastair

I hope this helps, needless to say i will keep you posted as to any response i might recieve.

Al

[10 Yetis]

has anyone heard anything about the payment processing side of things?

[YEM]

Hi,

If this is all set up by my deadline of 9th November, I will put it in issue 3 of YEM in the news/views section with a link to the site that is being planned

Lucy

[10 Yetis]

After three... We love Lucy! :)

[Asteeleleith]

Hi all
I have not had a response to my email as yet i'm afraid :-(

Al

[Belladonna]

Ive tried emailing the charity commission and DEC.org but no response as yet.

In fact the automated reply for the charities commission stated they would get back to me within 15 days..............................

[freecybermag]

If anyone can design a logo for what you're doing or even write an article asking for help I will place it in my mag e-zine for free.

Regards

Rob
www.freecybermag.com The web's best free online mag e-zine

[YEM]

Hi All,

I have allocated a space for this in our news and views section of YEM, I have reserved one of the larger spaces too. Andy, perhaps you will write a press release for it when things are in place and send it over to me, the space is approx 250-300 words plus an image which we will source unless anyone has an image they think would be suitable. Deadline is 9th November

Lucy

[Belladonna]

The charities commission have replied to say

"With regard to your query. We advise you to contact the Disasters Emergency Committee in this matter www.dec.org.uk"

Hmmmmm - will have to wait for dec.org to get back to me!

[Enigma121]

I got a reply back from the Red Cross, but only to say that they were passing the mail onto their Fundraising Dept.

That was Wednesday, nothing since then - but at least someone has read it.

[Cornish Steve]

Ive tried emailing the charity commission and DEC.org but no response as yet. In fact the automated reply for the charities commission stated they would get back to me within 15 days....

That was Wednesday, nothing since then - but at least someone has read it.

Red tape, red tape, red tape... and in the meantime, people are dying.

Do we believe that members of this forum are trustworthy? If so, then I have a suggestion.

1) Let's set a price per pixel for the 'Pixels for Pakistan' idea.

2) Have Rob and others set up the web page for us.

3) Anyone wishing to buy a number of pixels posts their donation request to this board - is it possible to set up a temporary forum for the purpose?

4) The person makes a donation directly to a reputable charity that is supporting earthquake relief efforts (see below).

5) Rob adds the person's logo, banner, whatever, to the pixel page.

Admittedly, there is no way to gurantee that someone making a pledge in this forum actually donates to a charity. As I see it, however, that's not the point. If 90% of us honour our pledge, then some good comes from it. If 10% promise to donate but don't, no harm is done and they must live with their conscience.

As for charities, I'd like to propose the following list, each of which offers the ability to donate online:

https://secure3.salvationarmy.org/donations.nsf/donate?openform&projectid=IHQ-SAsia_Quake

http://www.mercycorps.org/

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_you_can_do/give_to_oxfam/donate/asian_quake.htm

Rob, the burden of this scheme would fall on you. What do you think?

Of course, we could always wait for the red tape to end and for a few more thousand people to die...

[Asteeleleith]

Hi there

nice idea, and u are right, people are dying while we faff around.

Do people not get an email from charitable organisations confirming reciept for their donations?
Perhaps if these ould be forwarded to Rob, they would be proof enough for the relvant pixels to be added?

Ignore me if i am speaking crap, i know i do a lot of that these days.

Al

[Cornish Steve]

Do people not get an email from charitable organisations confirming reciept for their donations?
Perhaps if these ould be forwarded to Rob, they would be proof enough for the relvant pixels to be added?l

This is a nice idea and would close the loop.

[Rob Holmes]

Rob, the burden of this scheme would fall on you. What do you think?

I'd need to check how much - I guess from looking at the software it's just a case of the donater setting up an account on the pixel website and then allocating them a pixel credits when the donation is confirmed.

I'm ok in principle doing this so long as people understand biz and my clients come first and this is prioritised below those two things.

Rob

[Enigma121]

Steve's approach should get the ball rolling.

There was / is nothing stopping setup of the site anyway, clearly direct online clearing would be convenient but not strictly required. To start a flood of donations I think an official link through is still important.

I've had another response back from Red Cross requesting clarification. They should be in the office on Monday, allowing that issue to be resolved either way.

[Enigma121]

Ok got a response from the Red Cross, unfortunately this wasn't very positive. Extracts from this response are shown below.


That's a nice idea, but sadly the charity legislation and VAT regulations are more complicated than that. Since the person is getting something in return, it is not actually a "donation" but it is advertising so we would be obliged to charge VAT to
the person buying the pixels, supply a VAT invoice and also put the income through a Trading company.



...the British Red Cross is part of a federation which has an ethical partnerships policy, we have to do a detailed screening of all our corporate partners, which again is difficult to do on this model as it is time consuming and we do not have the resources to do this on such a large scale.



Whilst I think your proposal is interesting, there are a number of obstacles for us that would prevent us from proceeding with this at the moment. Sorry to disappoint.


Anyone else had any further joy with other charities?

Clearly the VAT issue is significant, but, chances are other charities may not be quite so choosy about where the cash comes from.

As Steve pointed out, time is running out to make a difference.

[Belladonna]

Oh :!:

Well, what about doing it through ebay on a charity auction?

People can pay to advertise on the pixels4pakistan site but the payment is processed via the ebay charity auction set up?

[Belladonna]

Just been looking at missionfish.org which is the engine behind ebay's charity auctions. WorldVision is one of the nonprofit organisations registered with them and you can specifically select World Vision's Emergency Relief fund.

Any thoughts?

[Belladonna]

Scrap that idea - it is for US Sellers only!

It looks like we are back to either putting a Donate Here button directly to an organisation such as DEC.org and wait for the donor to send the confirmation email (which I don't remember getting!) Or, using paypal................. - whichever, it needs to be fast!

[Enigma121]

Pure genius belladonna!

Divide the grid up to a suitable level, launch really high profile campaign to get advertisers to bid on the auction, then set up a dutch auction for each pixel square.

All we need to decide is how many squares, who'll handle the PR exercise then when the site is ready we're off.

Winning bidders (there will be a lot of them) will have their ad put on there following the auction.

The issue is gonna be getting enough effort ploughed into smoothing the process of adding images / links. Suggest XML files are used which will allow bulk addition of images with minimal effort.

Matrix, can you pass on details of the script you are proposing to use, in case we are able to provide assistance on this front?

[Enigma121]

Ebay's site say's its for UK sellers (I think)

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/community/charity/sellerinfo.html

But they are also only supporting Children In Need until 18th Novemeber this year.

[Belladonna]

But they are also only supporting Children In Need until 18th Novemeber this year.

Yep - that's gonna b a problem. Could we start off by simply getting people to send us their confirmation emails, and then when ebay supports other charities start doing it through ebay?

Not sure if we should auction them or set a "buy it now" fee?? The problem is there has to be a minimum donation of £5, though I guess we could start the auction at £5 anyway..............

[nick72]

Hi all,
I'm a friend of 10 Yetis and he was telling me about this at the weekend. Thought it was a great idea so hoped to come on here ready to buy some advertising!

Shame you seem to have all got stuck on red tape issues. The longer you wait to do something the less of an impact it's going to have. Unfortunately you may be too late already with the next natural disaster in hurricane Wilma closing in.

Wouldn't it be an idea to bootstrap the idea to see if it takes off? Just set the page up, and accept donations through paypal? You get a notification with paypal when someone pays you with their email address on so you could email them back.

I don't think there's any point worrying about VAT unless the idea takes off. If it did then I'm sure you'd get accountants offering to help out for a bit of free publicity or some other Charity would get involved and help you out.

Don't let barriers get in the way! Just set it up and get the ball rolling. Deal with problems as they arise!

Cheers
Nick

[Cornish Steve]

I decided to start the ball rolling. If we are able to get the Pixels for Pakistan idea going, that's great. If not, at least we can donate to the cause. Let's keep a running total and see if we can reach 1,000 pounds by the weekend. Anyone up to the challenge?

Here are some excerpts from the confirmation message sent by the Salvation Army:

donation id:

1298098000003232300891

date:

20 October 2005 01:03 PM (GMT)

company name:

The Global Online Learning & Development Center, Inc.

donation:

100 USD (at current exchange rates, about 57 pounds)

[Rob Holmes]

Good one Steve,

Heres ours..

donation id:

1298109760003573102652

date:

20 October 2005 01:22 PM (GMT)

name and address:

Matrixx Hosting
145-157 St John Street
London

donation:

25 GBP

Rob

[Rob Holmes]

and the link to the donation page ;)

https://secure2.salvationarmy.org/donations.nsf/donate?openform&projectid=IHQ-SAsia_Quake

Rob

[hfarooqui]

Hi, Let me introduce myself first. My name is Hammad Farooqui, I am working as a Manager Operations & Development in one of the Largest Call Center based in Pakistan. I'm one of the newest member here.

I came across this, i'm truly very happy to see you guys are doing and planning so much for Pakistani peoples. I'm literally very happy to see. May God Bless every body.

Please let me know if i can help you in any case.
You can contact me either on

UK : +44 207 043 1672 (ext.2)
PK : +92 300 2032044
email: hfarooqui@alt-source.com

[wool-shop]

Not only is it a goer - I have already set it up over a week ago.
Below is an extract from a mail I am sending to Companies.
If you wish to check out the site the address is in the e-mail below.
If anybody has any ideas on how to best promote this or can help to do so I would be delighted.




I am genuinely trying to raise money for charity and offer an affordable means of advertising at the same time.

I have a website set up where everybody wins :-

1./ Companies such as yours have the opportunity to place an advert on the site for an entire year at the very small price of £5.00

2./ Individuals can place messages, pictures or anything else (provided it is legal and not obscene) so, for example, loved ones abroad can receive birthday messages from their families, for only £2.00

3./ At least half of all the money raised will be sent to the Asian Earthquake Appeal Fund via Oxfam

4./ The site is accessed from my regular knitting materials website so I receive extra visitors to that site.

So, as I said, everybody wins.

If you wish to take advantage of this superb opportunity to receive incredibly inexpensive advertising whilst supporting an extremely worthwhile cause, please visit my site at :

www.wool-shop.biz

If you are not interested, then thank you for at least taking the time to read this.

As I mentioned before, this is not Spam so if you do not wish to receive further e-mails from me, you do not need to do anything. This is a one-off message and I will not trouble you again.


Regards

Sarah Corbett

[alex_bpo]

Hi Rob,

The way you speak in the forum is absolutely superb...... Straight to the point........ When I was dailling for UK campaign there were very few people the way how you answer.............

Best Regareds,
Ganesan Ramaiah :)

[level200]

What happened in Pakistan? do you mean the train?

<edited> Ha the earthquake its an old thread, my mistake.

BTW did the site/ pixel donation thingy ever get under way?