Evan ProdromouJul 17, 2023

FUND FOR THE BLACK-RUN FEDIVERSE

UPDATE: GoFundMe shut this down. It's a long story.

Please instead donate directly to these great fediverse projects led by and for Black people.

https://www.patreon.com/Wibblur/ is Social Media by the people, for the people

https://www.patreon.com/andcomputers is making blacktwitter.io

https://blackqueer.life/ is a welcoming community for all Black queer, trans, and gender nonconforming people

https://www.gofundme.com/f/a-new-way-to-social-media Ro is making a new way to social media

Patreon

Patreon is empowering a new generation of creators. Support and engage with artists and creators as they live out their passions!

Patreon
Show threadEvan ProdromouJul 17, 2023

GoFundMe shut down this fundraising campaign for violating their terms, in particular "Prohibited conduct".

https://www.gofundme.com/c/terms

I don't have any more details from GFM, but my guess is that the description wasn't clear enough, or just didn't vibe with their work.

In the setup for a campaign they say you can raise funds to distribute to others, but I guess this particular case rings alarm bells.

Anyway, please check below for ways to help out!

UPDATE: they don't allow giving grants.

GoFundMe Terms of Service

Read GoFundMe's Terms of Service

GoFundMe
Show threadEvan ProdromouJul 17, 2023

Here's what I sent to GFM:

So, can I talk to someone about what happened here?

I’m an Open Source software developer and community leader. I was trying to raise funds to support some of the great Black-led projects in my area of software development (federated social networking).

At sign-up, it said I could find people to give funds to; it didn’t have to be defined at the beginning.

I was surprised to see the fund shut down.

[cont'd...]

Show threadEvan ProdromouJul 17, 2023

[...]

Is there something I could change to make this campaign suitable for GoFundMe? Or am I banned from the platform now?

Show threadEvan ProdromouJul 17, 2023

Here's what they sent back!

'GoFundMe cannot process payments for "annuities, investments, equity or lottery contracts, lay-away systems, off-shore banking or similar transactions, money transfer services (including currency exchanges, check cashing or the like), debt collection or crypto-currencies."'

[cont'd]

Show threadyour auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦Jul 17, 2023
@evan maybe this is an opportunity to ask around about open collective and see how they fit as service or even a partner?
Show threadBoris Mann

@blogdiva @evan yep, Open Collective is good for this, including being able to directly have sub-projects, if so desired.

It's mostly about finding a fiscal host to accept you.

Jul 17, 2023 at 10:00pmWeb
Show threadyour auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦Jul 17, 2023
@boris @evan interesting, thanks. so they don't do the fiduciary thing? they're just a middle people? or like a bank?
Show threadBoris MannJul 17, 2023

@blogdiva @evan or depends ;)

They are a full stack software platform. They have several fiscal hosts of their own in different countries, focused on open source.

Fiscal hosts can sign up use the platform and serve groups of people who don’t even need an org or bank account, or, if you’re an active organization with a bank account, you can just use the tools directly.