Re: Phone number for donations?

I'd like to start making small, regular donations to SPI, explicitly for
Debian. I use my bank's bill-pay function for this sort of thing.
Unfortunately, my bill-pay service requires a US phone number for the
recipient, and I'm not finding such a thing in the SPI web site.

The WHOIS database lists a non-US number, which I can't use for the purpose.

Is there a solution for folks who require a phone number to donate? For
various reasons, only one of which is laziness, writing out checks by hand
and mailing them isn't a good option for me, and I don't tend to allow things
to pull through a credit/debit card directly.

Thanks in advance for clues!

--
Mason Loring Bliss (( If I have not seen as far as others, it is because
mason(at)blisses(dot)org )) giants were standing on my shoulders. - Hal Abelson

Mason Loring Bliss wrote:
> I'd like to start making small, regular donations to SPI, explicitly for
> Debian. I use my bank's bill-pay function for this sort of thing.
> Unfortunately, my bill-pay service requires a US phone number for the
> recipient, and I'm not finding such a thing in the SPI web site.

SPI doesn't have its own phone number. I'll provide you with my number
off list.

Michael Schultheiss
Treasurer, Software in the Public Interest, Inc.

--
----------------------------
Michael Schultheiss
E-mail: schultmc(at)spi-inc(dot)org

Has a Google Voice number been considered?

-hilmar

On May 9, 2013, at 2:34 PM, Michael Schultheiss wrote:

> Mason Loring Bliss wrote:
>> I'd like to start making small, regular donations to SPI, explicitly for
>> Debian. I use my bank's bill-pay function for this sort of thing.
>> Unfortunately, my bill-pay service requires a US phone number for the
>> recipient, and I'm not finding such a thing in the SPI web site.
>
> SPI doesn't have its own phone number. I'll provide you with my number
> off list.
>
> Michael Schultheiss
> Treasurer, Software in the Public Interest, Inc.
>
> --
> ----------------------------
> Michael Schultheiss
> E-mail: schultmc(at)spi-inc(dot)org
> _______________________________________________
> Spi-general mailing list
> Spi-general(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
> http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-general

--
===========================================================
: Hilmar Lapp -:- Durham, NC -:- hlapp at drycafe dot net :
===========================================================

Hilmar Lapp <hlapp(at)drycafe(dot)net> writes:

> Has a Google Voice number been considered?

Nope. The fact that I can't recall anyone ever asking for a phone
number before probably means this is a fairly rare occurrence...

Bdale

On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 09:51:09AM -0600, Bdale Garbee wrote:

> Nope. The fact that I can't recall anyone ever asking for a phone
> number before probably means this is a fairly rare occurrence...

A private phone number sufficed here. I can't see great utility in adding to
process complexity unless it comes up more frequently than it evidently does.

That said, I do wonder if additional funds couldn't be put to good use -
Debian's marketing is almost entirely word of mouth. It could conceivably be
worth lowering the bar for prospective donors. I asked for a number because I
wanted to donate, but to do so I dug through the web pages, looked at the
whois database, and finally located and subscribed to a mailing list that
included greylisting delays. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there have
been other folks wishing to donate using the same mechanism who simply gave
up somewhere before completing the hunt.

--
Mason Loring Bliss (( "In the drowsy dark cave of the mind dreams
mason(at)blisses(dot)org )) build their nest with fragments dropped
http://blisses.org/ (( from day's caravan." - Rabindranath Tagore

On 05/11/2013 08:51 AM, Bdale Garbee wrote:
> Hilmar Lapp <hlapp(at)drycafe(dot)net> writes:
>
>> Has a Google Voice number been considered?
>
> Nope. The fact that I can't recall anyone ever asking for a phone
> number before probably means this is a fairly rare occurrence...

I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect that a corporation have a
phone number. The fact that we don't is actually rather embarrassing. A
simple forwarding number that can be redirected as needed should be in
place.

JD

>
> Bdale
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Spi-general mailing list
> Spi-general(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
> http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-general
>

----- "Joshua D. Drake" wrote:  
> I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect that a corporation have a  
> phone number. The fact that we don't is actually rather embarrassing. A  
> simple forwarding number that can be redirected as needed should be in  
> place.

You can get a 1-800 number through Gafachi for about $2 per month and
around $0.03 per minute of use. If it was bound to an instance of Asterisk
you could set up extensions and have those ring to anyone's phone anywhere
you wanted. I think similar things can be done with a Google Voice but I only
have personal experience setting up a SIP/IAX connection with Asterisk and
a VOIP vendor.

Folks,

While this hasn't come up often, it's also easily fulfilled. Let's just
get a Google Phone number. It can ring Michael, Bdale and me. It'll be
free, and we can forget about it.

--Josh

On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 5:50 PM, Josh Berkus <josh(at)postgresql(dot)org> wrote:
> While this hasn't come up often, it's also easily fulfilled. Let's just
> get a Google Phone number. It can ring Michael, Bdale and me. It'll be
> free, and we can forget about it.

FYI, one problem I noticed with that plan in the past is that a given
phone # can only be the forwarding target for (or even associated with
I think) a single Google voice account at once. So whatever # an
individual wants to have it forward to can then not be used for a
similar solution for some other organization that individual is
involved with.

Anyway, these are implementation details; IMO we can let whichever
board members want to be part of the ring group figure it out without
design by committee. (Or maybe they do want more suggestions about how
to do it?)

-Jeremy