Fundraisers for Disaster Relief?

Jaxxy · #1 (**permalink**) 09-02-2008, 02:42 PM

I hope that I post this thread to the right sub-forum -- I will not be affronted if it is moved. On the contrary, I'm thrilled to have a rescource such as WebProWorld's Forum to be a part of, and am glad for its most intuitive categorization.

Hurricane Gustav has just been downgraded to a Tropical Depression -- without having broken through any/many levees -- for which hundreds of millions of us are positively thrilled. But, did you know, that as I type, "Hanna", "Ike", and "Josephine" -- all significant enough storms to already be named -- are brewing out there in the Atlantic Ocean? It's going to be bad...

THE POINT!

Why do I care?: I lived in Florida for 35 out of 36 of my years, and have been through my hurricanes in that time -- some bad, some horrible; they don't appear to come in "fun-size". Katrina did in fact 'hit' me, but at the time, she was but a Category 1 hurricane; not so horrendous, the electricity barely went out where I was.

But when I saw what she went on to do to the people of New Orleans, I had to go to the hospital with a panic attack so epic I believed it to be heart failure. It wasn't; however, I cannot idly watch people suffer in the sun, die of -- completely avoidable! -- hunger and thirst, or kill each other for help or medicine or supplies, or just out of crazed terror, after (?!) any kind of disaster, ever again. Hurricanes are just the ones I've witnessed, so, that is the area of my chosen 'starting-place', when I get this going.

I'm also sensitive to people being without the barest necessities because I am medically disabled, and would have died had I been in New Orleans after Katrina. I am, for once, in a position where I can do something very good, and I am very passionate about taking advantage of it.

Okay, maybe this is THE POINT!

What do I figure I can I do?: I am in a position to speak to and encourage well over one million people; the website that I own is a six-years-old, organically-grown (staff, coding, and traffic; haha, what's Page Rank? ugh), very popular thing that already sees that many uniques a month. Problem (?) is, it's still "hobby-site", self-proprietorship status, and makes a negligible amount of money... enough to pay its server costs and throw the tiniest of bones to our "techs" (for I am nooo programmer).

I already posted a "Site News", wishing well to the Gustav sufferers yesterday, and sent a broadcast email to the Archive's Forum Members (~3000 souls on the mailing list) -- people are responding. I believe that they would be quite responsive to a charity fundraiser for disaster relief hosted by our very own communities.

In looking for the legalities and logistics of charity fundraising, I am running in circles! I realize that I could just slap up a banner and/or announcement that I am collecting money to give to victims, but I do not know if it is legal for me to do so, being as I am on SSI, that my website is unincorporated, and that I am affiliated with no relevant organizations.

There must be an answer -- what a waste if there weren't! I have thinking, feeling adults, by the hundreds of thousands a week, that would love to help some very frightened, sick, and sad people.

I'm afraid I ranted and rambled a bit -- I apologize -- I am wired, positively champing at the bit, to make my organization effective, and known to be so, for humanitarian causes. The reasons are manifold but right. (I feel that little "click" inside where I know it's what I need to do.)

Does anyone have any experience here? Between my nerves concerning the storms, my drive to do something about them, and my inability to find anything conclusive through my own research, my brain is fit to splode, utterly splode.

Thank you for reading; any advice would be richly appreciated. Happy September!

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