Information about selling our left-over "Free Frag" corals.

[Fizz71]

When Mo and I first sat down to discuss the Free Frag give away for the event this weekend we thought that it would be a good idea to sell the left overs, and then for every $24 we collect randomly pick somebody who bought a coral to donate $24 to Reef Central in their name and give them "Member Privileges" on RC for a year.

Since this will be the first swap that we've done as a registered charitable organization I've read through some official documents filed with the state about how solicitations can be done. I found out that we may be prohibited from advertising that the money is going to Reef Central without written approval from Reef Central. This would only be the case if RC is registered as a charitable organization. If they aren't, then no big deal. If they are, then I need written approval signed by 2 officers of RC.

I know this is a pain..I hate bureaucracy as much as the next guy. But there are people out there trying to cause trouble for NCPARS so I'm going overboard on policies until my name is off the BOD.

I'm writing this thread and submitting it to the moderators so they can put me in touch with somebody to make this legit if it needs to be done. If I can't get this approved and come up with a method of doing the donation in the next 2 days we may change what we do with the extra corals.

We can always just give them away..and who knows...depending on who shows up we may not even HAVE that many extra corals!

Let me know RC!!!!

--Kevin Fizz
--President NCPARS

 

[shimmy_yaz]

Well depending on what happens you could always just "give" them away and then have the winners simply send $24 to RC.

 

[Fizz71]

I'm missing something here....if we "give" them away...where is the money coming from?

Now if we charge $2 a frag and didn't say where it was going we could then give $24 to somebody and ask them to honestly pay RC...Same result if the person is honest, but then we can't say it's going to RC because we can't really gaurnatee it. Not to mention I don't know if we can just "sell" corals..that whole business licence thing.

You know...I have read more bi-laws, goverment acts and policies in the last year than I have ever or will ever again read in my life.. and I wouldn't care if there weren't people out there bent on causing us trouble. My head can't take much more of it..I wonder how many good childhood memories I've sacrificed to fill my head with all this crap.

--Fizz

 

[coralnut99]

If you're 510C3, I doubt there's anything stopping you from selling anything. All charitable / NFPs sell stuff all the time. The trouble is with the folks buying and then trying to take 100% of what they paid NCPARS as a tax deduction. Given that $2 is probably way under the market value of any frag, what you need to do is provide something that specifies this, and that you cannot verify the tax deductability of anything purchased at that price. hth

 

[Fizz71]

You're probably right...the real issue here is using RC's name as a donation receiver...we can't really do that without their permission if they are a charitable org. I'm trying to follow the rules as we learn more about them.

--Fizz

 

[DgenR8]

Guys,
I wish I knew the answer to your questions, but I don't have the slightest idea. I think the best thing you could do is contact Ryan RBaker@ReefCentral.com about your concerns. He may not know the answers either, but he'll know where to find them.

 

[Fizz71]

I've had problems with getting emails returned from you guys but I'll try......and that's not a complaint..that's an understanding of how much email you probably get!

--Kevin

 

[Rhinecanthus]

Just a thought...why does the $$ have to go to RC?

Why not have $25.00 gift certificates to a good LFS for every $25.00 thats spent.

I doubt that its just me, but $25.00 to put towards food, salt or livestock would do me a whole lot more good than being able to use the search engine once in awhile.

 

[shimmy_yaz]

I think the idea behind it was to help out RC.

 

[Fizz71]

...and...we won't know how many we'll have...AND..an LFS GC is useless to anybody that doesn't live near the lfs.

But the main reason is because we want to help our RC since we use it all the time.

--Fizz

 

[Rhinecanthus]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7310542#post7310542 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by shimmy_yaz
I think the idea behind it was to help out RC.

:lmao:

125,000 members & 60+ sponsors.

Even if only 1 in 100 members paid their $24 and the sponsors paid a modest sponsor fee, youre talking about $50,000 a year RC is bringing in.


:idea:
Joe Schmo getting his salt for half price seems more philanthropic.

 

[Barney121]

At this point we also want to do it because we've announced we're doing it, we don't want to change our plans midstream if we can help it. If we find out we can't, that's another story, but I'm sure we'll figure it out.