I just wanted to let everyone know where we are financially after the two fundraisers. We did the on-site fundraiser that you all saw on your homepage. Thank you so much for all of your donations!!!
And then we did this one on Indiegogo for people not affiliated with the network: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/take-ben-s-friends-through-the-home-stretch-until-the-irs-grants-501c3-status - As a digression, how cool is it that people who aren't even members donated $13k on Indiegogo? That speaks to how incredible our work together has been. That people across the world recognize how special this group is.
Anyways, we've raised just about $23,000 to fund the communities for the year and we have two other foundations that want to give us money as soon as we get the non profit designation from the IRS. I've attached two letters that we submitted to the IRS yesterday. The first is a letter from the Junior League of San Francisco saying they would donate $5k, which is really incredible, and the second is from Ben's Friends pleading with the IRS to give us an expedited review to get the non profit status.
So that's where we are. It costs $30k to run the community for the year. That's bare bones costs paying for the software and a some money for Rose and her team who update the site. That's where every drop of $ goes. It's all made possible by you volunteer moderators and all of the other people who volunteer behind the scenes.
Provided we get the IRS designation sometime during the year, we should be able to cover costs for all of 2014!
Please respond with questions. Thanks for all the donations, and for being there when for the community.
Scott
179-Bensfriendsexpediteletter2Jan1720141106AM.pdf (807 KB) 180-JLSF_BensFriends.doc (594 KB)