It’s awful isn’t it, I get loads of things like this on facebook. The most recent was ‘pay for my severely deformed mini that I bred’s vet bills’… Eurgh.
We have a rescue in my area that started just that way, back in the pre-internet days. The founder just got way more animals than s/he could support, so starting claiming they were “rescues” and asking people for money.
[QUOTE=Sannois;7387111]
Yeah except now they do not even have to work for it, Mommy and Daddy Take the slips to work, or park them outside of a wallmart and sell.
When I was a Girl Scout you HAD to go Door. You put in the leg work.[/QUOTE]
Some of that’s been dumped for safety reasons rather than “no one wants to work.” It’s a lot safer to sit in front of Rite-Aid and sell boxes of cookies (plus then you get people who’d just like to buy a freakin’ box of cookies, not order in advance) than go door to door and wind up locked in some guy’s basement for ten years.
Crowdfunding where your donors GET something concrete for your donation make a certain amount of sense to me–you crowd-fund an indie movie, you get producer credit or a DVD, crowdfund a book and you get an advance copy or to name a character or whatever. But I don’t get ones that seem to be more and more common like the one in the OP, where basically you’re going “I want X, but I don’t have the money, so gimme.”
Curious, and I’m sure I know the answer - does the IRS keep an eye on these crowdfunding sites?
A friend started one as she is now “pro” status in her sport. I donated, only because I know her and I wish her the best in the pro sport, it is not easy or cheap. I know I won’t ever be able to do what she does so I am happy to send her a few bucks to help her along. I wouldn’t donate to someone I didn’t know.
My mom started one for me, for the rescues I do. I don’t promote it though. I am not a rescue and don’t claim to be one. Therefore I do not ask for donations. It’s more of a hobby for me. My mom is the only one that donates to it, but I also feed her horse for her lol. Plus I also work 2 jobs to support my hobbies.
I don’t get why it bothers some people so. It ticks me off that I have to pay school taxes even though I’m a non-breeder. I hate that people will throw money at any kind of sports fundraiser for say, some football game, but bring up abandoned kids living under the street in steam tunnels because it’s -40 at night in Ulaan-Bataar, Mongolia? You’ll get a blank stare and an, oh, that sucks.
If you don’t agree with it, don’t donate. I don’t like the religious pushiness of Salvation Army, would never give any money, but I do donate to Heifer International.
If I ranted about everything on the internet that annoyed me, well, I’m not sure there’s enough electricity for that…
As a child of a broken and dysfunctional home, my brother and I worked hard to sell more than 10,000 candy bars each year to go to summer camp.
I appreciated all that those thousands of dollars did. You see, camp gave me strength and values, independence and joy. I found my spouse there. It gave my brother direction an focus.
Pretty good for two broken kids that would have just fallen into petty influences during the summers. Instead we learned how to hike and fish, ride horses, and give back to our communities.
I don’t think the thousands of people I interacted with realize that but I am grateful for the chance to be a reasonably productive member of society. 
Here, school kids have sports and band and shop.
The kids that participate in different shop projects, like building horse trailers or feeding truck boxes or portable cattle handling facilities have been winning in the big shows in Austin and Houston, over very big, well financed schools.
In the past decade they have won over $300,000.- in scholarships and prizes!
Plenty of those kids go on to be teachers, mechanics, engineers, doctors, etc. later, boys and girls.
How do they finance their projects and trips?
They hustle for projects by asking everyone what they would be buying soon in machinery and checking out if it is something they can build.
If so, you “order” it from them, they buy the materials and bring you bills and then make it, get to show it and generally get a donation for it.
They do wonderful job of it, better than many manufactured in a factory.
They also have smaller projects and donations that help them fund their trips.
Now, to fundraise for an expensive hobby like participating with horses, not as a professional being sponsored, but just for fun?
I don’t think that is where most would want their hard earned money go to.
People have their own needs and wants they will be funding first.
It’s ridiculous. There is a thread in the H/J forum where a BNT is doing just this for his next horse. For $100 you get a signed picture; goal is $500,000. I don’t get why people actually send money. I have bought the cookies, candies etc. from parents going around the office asking for their kids, I’m okay with it, maybe don’t love it but I get that kind of fund raising. Fund raising for personal use is quite another thing, if people are giving you lots of $$ don’t you at some point have to pay taxes on it? How does that work?
On a side note, I would feel guiltless to crowd fun from the ultra wealthy 1%, tossing a few hundred thousand my way for an indoor arena would make me ridiculously happy; I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t even know or miss that little dribble of money in their world but it would sure make a difference in mine!
js - you beat me to mentioning that there is a big name trainer doing this.
[QUOTE=Lady Counselor;7386960]
I thought there was a thread someplace about this, but I couldn’t find it. I think it was for vet bills though.
Is it me, or are crowd funding gigs like this completely tacky?
I know the economy is bad, and that people are struggling, but still, whatever happened to sucking it up and working it out?
I’ve worked two and three jobs to keep my horses. I pay all of their expenses. I never let bills pile up for feed or services. And a couple times when life got rocky, I moved a couple of them on to people better equipped to afford them and use them.
This girl could do so many things other than crowd funding (which isn’t looking all that successful, BTW).
Free lease to a good barn, rehome one or both, if she’s at a barn where there is a lesson program, work off some keep with the use of the horses. Get a second, part time job even if it’s crap, something for the check. Sell unused tack, advertise as a tutor (if she has the ability to teach someone else), just do SOMETHING instead of posting an internet begging ad.
Even if she somehow falls into a generous donor who hands over three months back board for her horses, guess what? Unless she is earning the board for right now, she’s right back to ground zero with the bill racking up again, while someone else feeds her horses.
Is this common now? I’ve seen a lot of these sites set up, but most of what I’ve noticed at them are people looking for help with medical bills, or getting text books for a school, stuff like that.
Maybe I’m turning into a version of my parents, but damn, ads like this just amaze me, and not in a good way.[/QUOTE]
It is utterly tacky. Have some pride, folks!
Would I crowd fund my hobby?
well HELL YES!!!
now how exactly do I do that?!
