[Foundation-l] Alternative to paypal

[Delphine Ménard]

On 8/13/07, Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:

> I agree we should keep our eyes open for alternatives, but the
> need doesn't seem to be urgent.

I believe that there are way too many things to be taken into account
to actually solve this issue (if issue it is) on a mailing list.

Let me try and state what the Foundation would need to answer before
finding the "perfect" fundraising tool.

First, keep in mind that, unless I am mistaken, the Wikimedia
Foundation is about the only organisation in the world achieving the
success it achieves with online fundraising (ie. not sending emails or
paper, but by just displaying a site notic on its websites), which in
itself, whether or not paypal is the best way of doing it, is quite an
achievement.

Now, the things to be taken into consideration to find the best
fundraising tool are:

1) who gives and how do they give?
ie. are donors in the biggest donor pool comfortable giving with this
or that way of giving? In that case, seeing that the Foundation is
primarily addressing US donors since it is a registered charity in the
US, is Paypal the best recognized system, or would another bring us
more donors?

2) Financial efficiency of the fundraising tool
Considering tool X is the right tool for our donors, do we get our
money's worth thanks to this tool (ie. the fact that more people give
is not offset by the fact taht we pay xxx fees on using that
fundraising tool).

3) International efficiency of that fundraising tool
Considering the Wikimedia Foundation is a US based organisation, but
has a vocation to fundraise across the world, is tool X the right tool
to make sure that donors across the world will give?
ie. Canadians/Japanese probably being the next potential source of
donations, do Canadians/Japanese trust/use tool X easily to donate?

These are three questions that would help us choose the "better"
fundraising tool.

This said, the most important question to answer, in my opinion, would be:

"Why do people give? (or not give, actually)"
- Because it's easy to give (as in practical)
- Because it's in their language
- Because it's in their currency
- Because it's tax-deductible (in their country)
- Because they love us
- Because they trust the organisation(s)
- Because they wanted to give to something somewhere and that's the
first thing that came to mind
- Because their donation does make a difference
- etc.
- Some of those reasons combined
- All of those reasons

Answering all of those questions, would probably prevent debating
whether Paypal or Amazon or Moneybookers is the "best" API, because it
would become evident what is the best solution. Keeping in mind that
"the best" does not mean "the best for each and everyone of us" but
the best in an average kind of way. Nobody's ever going to be 100%
happy about what tool we use anyway ;-)


Delphine
-- 
~notafish

La critique, art aisé, se doit d'être constructive. -- Boris Vian in
*Chroniques du menteur*

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