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Is there anyone who is willing to handle the money? I like Brian’s suggestions. We could ask people to contact the recipient of the funds (whoever that is) via PM with the amount they want to donate and copy me and one other person (or 2) we choose. The primary person could respond to everyone with the instructions, then notify everyone when the funds are received. That person could send an updated total after each donation via post in the Admin & Mod private section.
I would be willing to write the post explaining everything.
What do you all think?
Here’s what I was thinking. Financial side:
I’ve never used paypal so things may not work this way, but…
We could have a staylds paypal account where all mods/admins have ‘read only’ access and one or two people that have distribution access. Any contributions people make can be made to that paypal account and hopefully payments can be made from that paypal account directly to InMotion hosting. If not it could be a payment/reimbursement from paypal scenario.
People with read only access to the joint paypal account would hopefully be able to see all the incomings, outgoings, balance, what went where, etc.
Edit: I see InMotion accepts paypal (
https://www.inmotionhosting.com/frequently-asked-questions Edit 2: I haven’t reviewed paypal fees closely. At a glance it sounds like there are no fees when it’s paypal to paypal, but there may be a small fee when transferring from debit/credit to a paypal account.
Technical side:
I can take up the technical side. I may or may not create a new StayLDS account with my real name in the process, I wouldn’t sock puppet or anything. It’s just that I’ve lost track of all the stupid stuff I’ve said over the years.
I can touch base with Brian but I see that the current version of phpbb for StayLDS is 3.2.1 and the latest version of phpbb is 3.2.9.
The first thing I would want to do is do a ‘diff’ between the source that’s currently on the server and vanilla 3.2.1 source to get an idea of exactly what and where the customizations are. Then a good first exercise would be to back everything up on the server, including the database, and update the phpbb software. That’s probably the most complicated thing I’d ever have to do. Backup, update, and if things really went south, restore from a backup.
Honestly I don’t like dealing with other people’s money because of the danger of impropriety. Not that I would ever consider it, but I’m paranoid about accusations of impropriety (it’s the same reason I don’t touch any of my students except for a fist bump or handshake and why I’m never alone with them). That doesn’t mean I don’t trust others. So I’m not the guy to manage the money (wasn’t Judas the money manager for the “original church”?). I am willing to take on the roll of being a secondary person also notified of donations as a safety for the person who keeps the purse. That said, Paypal is probably viable and Venmo might also be an option(?). I do have a Paypal account although I haven’t used it in many years. I have also not used Venmo but my kids use it all the time.
Don’t get paralyzed overthinking the process.In the end though, you’re only talking about $130 or so per year. It’s not some huge amount of money. Not to make light of it though. I’ve definitely had times in my life when that was a lot of money to me. But this isn’t a huge financial operation. I use PayPal regularly. It isn’t really feasible to have a joint PayPal account with multiple people accessing it. They make you verify your legal identity, and you have to tie it to a real bank account. You REALLY wouldn’t want to give other people access to that. They could make purchases, compromise the login security accidentally, drain the attached bank account, etc., etc. It would be too similar to giving multiple people access to your bank accounts. No good at all.
There aren’t any fees for simple “friend to friend” transfers. And there are no fees for withdrawing the funds to a bank account if you are willing to wait 2-3 days (you can pay a 1% fee for expedited transfer within hours). There could be fees deducted for people using their bank/credit cards to send you money without their own PayPal account, but PayPal does facilitate card transactions without having to go through all the hoops of being setup as an organization to accept credit cards.
If InMotionHosting accepts PayPal, you could pay the bill directly from the PayPal account without routing it though other banks/cards. That’s nice.
It is possible to tie a PayPal account to multiple email addresses. So for example, you guys could create a “
donations@staylds.com ” email account that only selected people have access to. Someone adds that email address to their existing PayPal account and verifies it. The donation notices would go to that email account (which is accessible to others), and the funds would be deposited to the designated PayPal account. There would still be some potential risk of abuse or compromise there, so it is not ideal as a permanent solution.Edit: Also, don’t get too tied up in never paying any financial transaction fees. You have to get this done, and that’s just a cost of doing “business.” Even if you ended up paying a couple percentage points in fees, you’re talking about less than $5 for this.
It would probably be better to start a GoFundMe (or similar) campaign. But I don’t think there would be time to do that correctly this year. Definitely consider it for next year.
nibbler, can you do what Brian just suggested with the email and PayPal accounts? I reached out to John Dehlin to ask him if we could funnel donations to his site, I could pay the fee via credit card and then submit the receipt to for reimbursement. I have also asked him if he would like us to make plans to be more independent for next year (February 2021).
I texted him to see if he got my email and he said “Yes” “Happy to help”. I sent him follow up texts to see if those answers applied to reimbursing me for the February fee payment… and I have not received a response. Unfortunately, if he is this challenging to communicate with at this point I can foresee that it might be a difficult process trying to get him to cut me a check later on.
How about we set up the PayPal, with Roy as the primary point of contact and have it linked to his personal account? Roy, if you are willing to pay the fee, you can transfer that amount to your own account when the donations reach the amount of the fee – and the PayPal account can hold any excess for the future. If we set up alternate, linked email accounts for at least two of us in order to have multiple people with eyes on the account, that should be enough for any normal auditing checks and balances.
Is that okay with you, Roy?
Any issues or suggestions I’m not seeing?
I talked to DW briefly. She said that we have a PayPal account that we do not use (we have another one that we do use – so this is just a duplicate). I will discuss it more with her tonight. I am not very technically proficient. The reason I do not have a profile picture is that I never figured out how to do it. 😆 If DW agrees then we can use that Paypal account as a StayLDS holding account for donations for this annual fee. I believe that I can do a post with a link to the paypal account. I honestly figure that if those of us that can put in $25 then it will only take 6 of us.
I would be glad to report on donations and the balance of the account.
I will talk to DW tonight to ensure that she is fully on board. If anyone else has suggestions I am still open to those.
I would not specify the exact amount in the post, so anyone can donate who wants to do so. If we get more than enough for the fee, it can sit in a relatively dormant account and be used next year. If we exceed the needed amount fairly quickly, by a decent amount, we can post a comment thanking everyone for their contributions, saying we will continue to accept donations for future costs if anyone feels the need to contribute, and that we will let everyone know when we need to ask officially for support again.
Roy wrote:
I sent him follow up texts to see if those answers applied to reimbursing me for the February fee payment… and I have not received a response.
That’s where I ended up too last year, after I already paid the bill.
🙂 I’m pretty sure John isn’t interested in funding this project anymore … but doesn’t want to say the words.Who is going to work on the hosting account and tech stuff? It can be more than 1 person if you want, too. I can give them the Cpanel login info whenever you guys decide. That’s the portal that has all the tools to manage the hosting account.
After the transition, and you guys are all set, you can change the password. It’s probably better to leave it as-is for now in case you still need me to log in to look at something or explain the setup.
I’ll take care of the tech stuff. Ok. We are good to go. The paypal account is linked to the email address kapobob@aol.com We tested it out and sent from one paypal account to another with no fee. If you wish to send money from a credit card then there is a fee of a little less than 5%.
If everyone is agreed. I can make a post asking for donations.DW and I are willing to maintain this account just for the purpose of collecting stayLDS donations and paying the annual fee. It shouldn’t have any transaction activity outside of that purpose.
Thank you, Roy and nibbler. Given how many of us have commented on this post and the overall discussion, I think I am safe in saying we can move forward with the transition to nibbler as CIO and Roy as CFO. I propose tripling their current salaries beginning tomorrow.
To make this thoroughly Mormon, all in favor, signify with
:thumbup: ; any opposed, by the opposite sign:thumbdown: 😆 😆 Roy, unless someone raises an objection, please write the post ASAP.
Brian, please work out the technical transition with nibbler.
:thumbup: Brothers Nibbler & Roy – Thank you. Thank Sister Roy also. Well done.
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