I noticed that transfer companies usually charge fixed amount for each transaction, so donating $1 can easily incur 30%+ fee.
So I would like to find a rule of thumb to minimize the fees yet cover all projects I like

Any tips?

  • SomeBoyo@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    Wikipedia is a very profitable company. They don’t need as many donations as the make it seem.

  • Steve@compuverse.uk
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    1 year ago

    My tip is: Instead of $3/month, donate $35/year. That way it’s only 1 transaction.

  • Sam
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    1 year ago

    Liberapay, 12$/year to any open source project I use. It isn’t much, but its what I can afford.

  • Dankenstein@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Most of the time, I rely on larger organizations, that I trust, to handle donations.

    Non-profits like Untied Way aggregate donations in local areas (as well as inter/nationally) and distribute funds to other organizations.

    They’re kinda like the production company for my contributions in the sense that they’ll know more about local organizations and what they’re in need of so I don’t have to rely on my limited knowledge and resources to find effective ways of making donations.

    Banks charge too much for facilitating transactions so if I want to donate to a specific organization then I’ll plan ahead and do a single transaction for the year and I’ll try to find a process that doesn’t involve electronic transfers other than a wire transfer since I eat the cost of the transfer that way.

  • Aio@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    I almost don’t do donations at all because i either don’t have the money or they don’t support the swedish version of cashapp, swish. Every time i have wanted to donate anything to anyone this had been the issues i face, except for one twitch streamer who became one of my better friends and one server hoster who i later on realized alot of bad things about. In both of these cases there was no transaction fee.

    TL;DR Swish takes no transaction fees but barely anyone takes swish. The few times i have the opportunity to donate i usually don’t have the money to donate.

  • FIash Mob #5678@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    I only donate to mutual aid requests, personally. It’s 5-10 bucks depending on what I have at the time and I do it a few times a year. When my parents’ house burned down people donated thousands ton a GFM set up for my parents, so it feels right to pay it forward within my means.

    A couple of times a year I do sales of my art that benefit a particular group, and that usually corresponds to a national tragedy. I did one benefiting Kansas City’s Community Bail Fund after the George Floyd murder, for example.

    The only regular donation I make is a buck each to my two Lemmy instances and my mastodon instance every month.

  • itchy_lizard@feddit.it
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    1 year ago

    Pick 4 NGOs per year. Donate 10% of income at the end of the year to them evenly.

    Next year pick another 4 NGOs that you think did great work that year.

  • Sentinian@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    Thanks for reminding me to donate to Wikipedia. Also interested in the topic. Luckily wikipedia lets you cover the fees at least

  • SalaTris@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    I’ve had some non-profits prompt me to up my contribution to cover transaction fees. But they seem to be closer to 3%.

    I try to identify orgs where there is actual need so I am not consistent. Some of the big-name non-profits get disproportionate attention, or they spend too much money on fundraising, or they grossly overpay their key people. Other non-profits do good work and are sorely underfunded.

    It’s not just transaction feels, I find the act of making individual contributions in itself an inefficient allocation of resources.

    • graphito@beehaw.orgOP
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      1 year ago

      Thanks! I’m interested in more information detailing your vision.

      Any criteria for identifying sweet spot projects where the funding is “almost right”: non over or under funded (where each donation matters the most)?

      • SalaTris@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        At some point you have to trust your gut?

        Speaking more broadly than FOSS:

        The large national nonprofits probably don’t need your money, and the small local nonprofits probably do. At the same time nonprofit can lose sight of their mission, and bigger orgs need admin, specialty jobs, and leadership that are full time jobs that a family could live on. So it’s hard to generalize. Their mission is the goal, not making decisions based on finances.

        I look at their finances to get an idea of where they are at. These can be “lagging indicators” if there really is a time sensitive need though.

        Examples: Ran into one person who was trying to promote their non-profit rather than solicit donations — when I looked into their finances it was clear they didn’t have the money to get there but had done great work already. Another person who doesn’t pay himself for the work he puts in because it’s all volunteer based and only seeks contributions for his projects.

  • Nolando@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    For those transfer fees alone, I should be switching to yearly donations, but I’m about half half monthly and yearly right now. Looking at the ones I support via Patreon, not all of them actually offer a yearly option though.

  • eladnarra@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    It’s not ideal, but I use Patreon to donate to a few different folks at once (I think it still combines transactions to reduce fees…). Otherwise I usually pay the fee, if the amount I’m donating is small and I’m given the choice.