Re: Issue #13 - Unclear section "Donations made through vendors"

http://www.spi-inc.org/donations/ contains the following section:

> Donations made through vendors
>
> Several vendors (of CDs, Books etc.) allow their customers to make donations to SPI or an affiliated project when ordering materials. In order to make these donations tax deductible, several requirements must be observed:
>
> * The receipt that the vendor issues must contain a separate item entitled "SPI Donation" (or something similar). This receipt is needed to claim the deduction from the IRS.
> * The vendor must not claim this donation as income, since it is income for SPI.
>
> Donations made by vendors should be sent to SPI monthly, if possible.

...plus something about AmazonSmile.

There are many things unclear in there, so this can be considered as a report of multiple issues, but...

"IRS" may be a well-known acronym in the USA, but "the USA's Internal Revenue Service" would be much clearer.

It is unclear whether the requirements listed are directed at vendors or "end-users"/"end-donors". Presumably, "Donations made by vendors should be sent to SPI monthly, if possible." targets vendors, and should not feature in a page targeted at "end-users"/"end-donors".

It is also unclear what is the purpose of that section - why would a potential donor donate through a vendor? Would donating through vendors save fees or allow more payment types? If so, it would clarify to say so.

Perhaps the section acknowledges that some vendors do transfer money to SPI, to reassure customers who are considering donating through vendors, but then not listing these vendors may not reassure much, or give a false sense of safety.

While AmazonSmile is related to that, it does not allow donating (it is Amazon making a fixed donation to SPI).

--
Philippe Cloutier
http://www.philippecloutier.com

I think it might be best to remove that whole section. I'll look at
it in more detail when I have more time.

--
Martin Michlmayr
https://www.cyrius.com/

Hi Martin,

On 2018-07-02 11:22, Martin Michlmayr wrote:
> I think it might be best to remove that whole section.

In the section's current state, I could not disagree with that.

I forgot one thing: perhaps specific vendors were not listed because we did not want to give them undue exposure. If that is the case, I suggest creating another page (a "subpage") to list them.

> I'll look at
> it in more detail when I have more time.
>

Thank you

--
Philippe Cloutier
http://www.philippecloutier.com

* Philippe Cloutier <chealer(at)gmail(dot)com> [2018-07-02 11:59]:
> I forgot one thing: perhaps specific vendors were not listed because
> we did not want to give them undue exposure. If that is the case, I
> suggest creating another page (a "subpage") to list them.

That's probably something projects should do themselves. I don't
think it makes sense for SPI to maintain such a list.

For example, Debian's CD vendor page indicates whether vendors allow
customers to donate to Debian: https://www.debian.org/CD/vendors/

--
Martin Michlmayr
https://www.cyrius.com/

On 2018-07-02 15:26, Martin Michlmayr wrote:
> * Philippe Cloutier <chealer(at)gmail(dot)com> [2018-07-02 11:59]:
>> I forgot one thing: perhaps specific vendors were not listed because
>> we did not want to give them undue exposure. If that is the case, I
>> suggest creating another page (a "subpage") to list them.
> That's probably something projects should do themselves. I don't
> think it makes sense for SPI to maintain such a list.

Our Donations page contains:
> Several vendors (of CDs, Books etc.) allow their customers to make donations to SPI or an affiliated project when ordering materials.

My comment was only about donations to SPI itself.

>
> For example, Debian's CD vendor page indicates whether vendors allow
> customers to donate to Debian: https://www.debian.org/CD/vendors/
>

I guess extending my suggestion to associated projects would involve linking to project-specific vendor donation pages. But note that the topic of that Debian page is how to obtain installation media, donating is a secondary topic. I do not know if Debian has a page which has donating through vendors as main topic.

--
Philippe Cloutier
http://www.philippecloutier.com