donations to the ranch

[paul wheaton]

I've now had over a dozen people suggest the donations thing.
Okay - so where would I go to set something like this up?

[Thomas Paul]

PayPal would probably be the way to go. You need to create a business account.
http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/xcl/rec/donate-intro-outside
PayPal is a lot cheaper than the Amazon Honor system.

[Dave Landers]

You could do it the same way as the Tack Room is done - "just send in the money". Or maybe you'd want to add PayPal to the tack room payment options?
But if you have a merchant account with the bank to handle the tack room credit cards, maybe ejip.net could help - looks like they have cybercash support:
http://manual.ejip.net/ejip_manual.xml#pmt_processing_c

[paul wheaton]

Okay, I just set myself up with paypal. It wasn't really clear what to do next.
It seems everything is based on e-mail. The e-mail address I signed up with is paul javaranch.com.
Now what?

[Thomas Paul]

1)Log in to your PayPal account.
2)Click on the Sell tab
3)Click on the Donations link
4)Specify the name, amount (optional; if you leave amount blank, your donor will be asked to choose a donation amount), and other details of the donation
5)Add more optional information such as custom button graphic and the ability to include a note with the donation
6)Click Create Button Now and the Button Factory will generate customized HTML code
7)Paste the HTML code on your website to create your "Donate" button.
The manual is here:
https://www.paypal.com/html/donations.pdf

[paul wheaton]

Are there examples of other people doing the pay pal thing like this?

[Thomas Paul]

http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/xcl/rec/donate-examples-outside

[paul wheaton]

Okay - that was pretty painless.
I set up the pay pal donor stuff. I asked carl to put it into the static pages under "advertise".

[paul wheaton]

Dave, I set up the cybercash stuff years ago because that is what ejip supported. In the meantime, verisign became evil and then bought cybercash. Now they have tripled the monthly rates and are, well, evil.
Is it true that anybody with a credit card could send me a payment through paypal? So let's say somebody wants to buy one of the shirts.... they could set up a pay pal account, push $40 from their credit card into the paypal system and then push it over to me? Would I get an e-mail from pay pal saying this was done? How much of a cut would pay pal take out of the $40?

[Dave Landers]

Oh. I didn't realize that Cybercash was now part of verisign. Evilness abounds in this world.
I've not done much with PayPal, except that my Father in Law has sent the kids birthday money that way. Not sure what their cut is, but I think they charge when you withdraw - cut a check or wire transfer.
Lots of folks are using PayPal to buy/sell stuff on ebay, so it should work for the Tack Room.
Send me some money and I'll let you know how it works

[Dave Landers]

Their fee schedule says its all free for us yokels, but businesses pay a cut. But I'm sure they took a cut outta one of my kid's last birthday checks - probably "shipping and handling".
I don't keep an account there, mainly because I trust my Father in Law's judgement (to be not so sharp about such things). So I can't really check into things. But never fear, if you do send $ I can create an account in to extract it.

[paul wheaton]

Are you set up with pay pal? What is your e-mail address?

[Cindy Glass]

I have used pay pal on e-bay - only on the paying side though. It was painless.

[paul wheaton]

Well, I just tried to move money into my pay pal account from my credit card so I could then have money to give to others. No dice.
Further invesigation shows that I need to sign up for a premium account in order for somebdy to give me money from their credit card. And then they want 2.9% plus 30 cents. But that gets charged for all transactions, not just credit cards stuff.

[paul wheaton]

Anybody have a penny in their account to pass to me so I can pass it back to see how this works? Apparently it would take me days to put my own money into my own account.

[Thomas Paul]

When you get a payment to your account, PayPal will notify you via e-mail. They take 2.9% + 30�. On a $10 donation that comes to 59�.

[Cindy Glass]

No but if you sign up for that super account, I will send you a couple of bucks via credit card.

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Paul Wheaton:
Well, I just tried to move money into my pay pal account from my credit card so I could then have money to give to others. No dice.

You should be able to activate your account with a credit card. On your "my account" screen, there should be an option to "add credit card". Then you should be able to make payments. That is what I did and had no trouble sending you $1.00.
[ September 12, 2002: Message edited by: Thomas Paul ]

[Frank Carver]

What I did is open two accounts (hey, I have lots of email addresses).
One is a "personal" account, for people who have uploaded cash to their own PayPal accounts, so I (theoretically) don't get charged.
One is a "merchant" account which can accept inbound credit card payments, but charges for the privelege.
I tell people both, and explain, and let them choose.
Note that like lots of these systems, they charge for currency conversion, even on the "free" accounts, so don't expect too many easy donations from foreigners ...

[paul wheaton]

Thomas Paul sent me a buck which generated an e-mail from paypal that said "if you want this dollar, you have to upgrade to 'premium' - click here". So I clicked and it said "you are now upgraded to premium"
The dollar was moved and I now have 67 cents in my account.
Thanks Thomas. I'd give you a dollar back, but apparently I don't have it!

[Thomas Paul]

I think their fee is reasonable. Amazon charges 15% + 15�.
On a $10 donation that comes out to $1.65 as compared to Paypal's 59�.

[Cindy Glass]

I sent you a dollar also. I think that they drop the money into your account, which you can then get put to your credit card - or get them to cut you a check on occasion.

[Cindy Glass]

So now we need a banner that says "Feeling Generous? Want to show your Appreciation?? - just click here . . . " .

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Cindy Glass:
I sent you a dollar also. I think that they drop the money into your account, which you can then get put to your credit card - or get them to cut you a check on occasion.

Cutting a check costs money. But they will transfer the money to your bank account for free.

[paul wheaton]

I tried to send a dollar to Cindy, but even though I now have a dollar and thirty-four cents, it would not allow me to send any money until I registered a credit card ...
Maybe the thing to do is to set up a second account (kinda like Frank) called [e-mail] where people that are paypal savvy can push money over without taking the credit card hit.
So maybe the next step (before the banner) is to create a page that sort of explains some of this.

[Jason Menard]

How about also adding a snail-mail address that donations can be sent to? The reason I mention this is that some of us probably use online banking where it is pretty painless to fire off a check to somebody. The bonus is that you get to keep the entire amount, with nobody taking a cut (except your wife and kids that is).

[Cindy Glass]

Paul, I didn't take any hit when I used my credit card. Only the receiver takes a hit.
I would expect that the money has not yet been "confirmed" and has a temporary lock on it. When you deposit a large personal check from someone else in a bank, there is often a lock on it until the funds actually clear.
It is possible that the Credit Cards authorized the transfer, but have not yet actually transferred the funds. Wait a day or two and try again and see if the funds have been cleared.

[Cindy Glass]

Jason, there is such an address on the bottom of the TackRoom page.
It says:
Paul Wheaton:
13901 East Deer Creek Road
Chattaroy, WA 99003

(OK - it actually says Brenda - but that is cuz she actually mails out the tackroom stuff in between taking the kids to school and milking the goats :roll: I am not completely sure that a new server would be HER priority ).

[Jason Menard]

Originally posted by Cindy Glass:
Jason, there is such an address on the bottom of the TackRoom page.

Tackroom? You mean there is more to this site than just the forums? I had no idea.

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Jason Menard:
You mean there is more to this site than just the forums?

That rumor has been going around for quite awhile. But I've looked in every forum and can't find it!

[Jason Menard]

Originally posted by Cindy Glass:
... milking the goats ...

At least nobody's trying to milk the moose.

[Marcus Green]

I have found PayPal to be very convenient in the past. Because it is so easy to use I once gave a $10 donation to a site for some very nice GPL software. I would never have done that using a credit card.
Marcus

[paul wheaton]

Well, I set up two more accounts. [e-mail] and [e-mail] - then I made a web page: http://www.javaranch.com/donate.jsp - we'll probably hook it up to the home page in the next day or two. Does it look okay? Does it work okay?

[Jason Menard]

Looks good!

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by Paul Wheaton:
Well, I set up two more accounts. [e-mail] and [e-mail] - then I made a web page: http://www.javaranch.com/donate.jsp - we'll probably hook it up to the home page in the next day or two. Does it look okay? Does it work okay?

Hi,
I would like to make some donations that i can via donate.jsp,but want to know what plans you have with that money.Not kidding asking in good thought only.
Thanks

[Cindy Glass]

Depends on if I get MY way or not .
Seriously - that is an excellant question, and we were discussing that very thing in MO.
I will have to wait for Paul W to respond though.

[Thomas Paul]

I think the key thing is to help Paul pay for the ongoing monthly cost of running this place.

[Harpartap Singh]

I just couldn't help it. It was just too tempting. Paul you have my $10 ($9.35). Actually, thanks for running such a valuable forum guys.
One suggestion though: Please edit all the messages in this thread to use the example of $20 transaction instead. Wow the power of suggestion. Everyone will be dropping Andrew Jacksons at you.

[paul wheaton]

What will the money be used for? That seems to suggest that what you see now is not sufficient.
So when you have pizza delivered, you give the delivery guy two bucks. What is he using that money for?
I thought we set this all up because people wanted to help out with a couple of bucks. Maybe there is some service you want us to perform or provide - in which case, it seems that you should e-mail me I'll tell you what I'll charge you to do it.
So now there's about thirteen bucks sitting in the kitty. What am I going to do with it? Leave it for now. By the end of the year it might be a hundred bucks.
I can tell you what I want to do. We fantasized about this in the MO forum a few months ago. Only then it was "what if we sold heaps of banner space!" - oh sure, there were lots of practical ideas for projects, servers, and the like. Maybe even some full time empoyees, like other sites have. But the thing I liked the best was to be able to fly all the sheriffs and bartenders over to my place for a few days and have a party.
A few years ago I dropped $5000 on "loot": mugs, tote bags, pens, fly swatters ("stop writing code that attracts flies!"), etc. It would be cool to do that sort of thing again.
So, a direct answer to the direct question of what will be done with this money: I dunno. How much money are we talking about?

[Thomas Paul]

I think if Paul gets a couple of hundred bucks by the end of the year he should use it to take his wife out to a nice restaraunt.