Donations to SLF

[Spartana]

How do you know if your donations to the NRMF were directed towards these boards? For example, I mailed a check to the NRMF and asked it to be put towards these SLF's. When I recieved the tax info letter from them it didn't say it was used towards the SLF or not. So, was it? If not, then what would we need to do for future donations to ensure that they get directed towards these forums?
:thankyou:

[redfox]

Spartana, a non-profit is required to direct funds the way the donor specifies. They probably sent the generic tax thank you letter; it costs staff time to produce a one-off acknowledgement, which is not what most non-profits want to do with donor dollars! I'd encourage you to email them to get reassurance that your funds are directed the way you wish.

[Spartana]

Thanks Redfox. I'm sure it was directed towards these forums but just wanted to make sure I was doing it right when I donate in the future. Not that I mind supporting the NRMF as I think they are very valuable, but I want to make sure these forums stay around awhile as they made such a huge impact on my life, and know that they do to other's as well.

[lhamo]

I hope Rozie or Helen will comment soon, but I know from my discussions with Rozie about my "matching grant" last month that she goes through all donations to NRM carefully, even those that do not specifically note that the money is supposed to be devoted to the forums, and tries to see if the person is identifiable as a forum member by looking at possible connections between username/real name, mailing address (can be matched to previous records from when Dave was running the site), email (I think that might show up if the donation comes in by Paypal), etc. And if there is any doubt, I think her default approach is to earmark the money for the forums.

NRM runs on a very lean budget, and Helen is currently the only paid staff person (and she works limited hours). Last year enough came in to cover the operating costs of the forums, but we are starting off this year with not much of a cushion. Appreciate everyone's willingness to continue to support the community financially as well as in other ways. I will probably do another "matching grant" later this year, and if anyone is interested in participating in something like that as a co-supporter/sponsor, that would be great.

lhamo

[RoseFI]

Spartana, Thank you very much for stepping up to make the continuation of this space possible! I have no idea what your legal name is, but all checks received by mail in December were clearly marked as SLF, and have been restricted to pay SLF expenses. I had asked Tom to make a note of that on the acknowledgements, but as lhamo said, he probably just sent out the standard form letter. So sorry that your request was not acknowledged in the letter, but it was acknowledged on the books. If you ever have a question of this nature in the future, you can feel free to PM me rather than start a whole public thread.

For people who give via Paypal, the only way we know for sure that the funds are restricted to SLF is if they make a note of it in the memo -- I wrote the specifics about this in the other thread about donations. I spent a tremendous amount of time on Monday (instead of doing my homework - paying for that now) reconciling the Paypal history through January with the NRM books, and trying to figure out who some straggling donors were by searching for their email addresses in the SLF admin list. If I couldn't find a match, I figured they were for the FI side of the house. I will post the financial totals in a separate thread.

Cheers,
rozie

[Spartana]

Spartana, Thank you very much for stepping up to make the continuation of this space possible! I have no idea what your legal name is, but all checks received by mail in December were clearly marked as SLF, and have been restricted to pay SLF expenses. I had asked Tom to make a note of that on the acknowledgements, but as lhamo said, he probably just sent out the standard form letter. So sorry that your request was not acknowledged in the letter, but it was acknowledged on the books. If you ever have a question of this nature in the future, you can feel free to PM me rather than start a whole public thread.



Thanks Rozie! I wanted to ask that question on th epublic thread because I assumed others may want to know as well. As for my "legal" name - it's Lindi. Or maybe I'm Spartana-cus, "No, I'm Spartana-cus". "No, I'm Spartana-cus" :devil: