Didn't realize it but this is a bit off topic anyway in short my 2 cents .
Non profit doesn't mean they should work for free, they could operate cost effectively. Employees have decent salaries and retirement arrangement, organisation has a financial reserve and of course the goal is not have operate at a loss so when generating a minor profit it should be donated to the arts or so.
If find their processing fees excessive, but compared with Paypal's it is about the same. This moneys stays with Amazon I guess, they handle the CC transactions.
Then KS keeps 5% of total funds raised. In total they have raised $1,915,430,890 since 2009. That is almost $ 96 million. They have 116 employees at the moment. A bit too much IMO. Edit: Too much refers to the 96 mil.
I think I will favor backing a project via Paypal if they do a double KS and PP fundraiser.
Last edited by TSR69 on Mon, 31st Aug 2015 12:45; edited 1 time in total
Nah, non profit means exactly that. No profit being made, thus the money can ONLY be used for the same thing that made the profit in the first place.
Employees in a non profit work on volunteer basis and MAYBE get a small amount for compensation. But a non profit mostly doesn't pay their employees.
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In the Netherlands a foundation is nonprofit. Founders and supervisors don't get paid, employees can be paid.
CAN, but rarely done these days and if so only a minimal fee, no full pay
I'm a tax advisor and I can tell you the non-profits that use our accounting company pay better salaries than most companies.
Stuff gets especially hilarious when its not counted as salary; company car, hah no problem, here take that Tesla with reduced tax rates. Oh you paid € 200 for a company dinner? Here is € 500 to make sure all costs are covered. Ah company phone? Take this golden iPhone 6 including an Apple Watch and iPad so you are always up to date. Got to make sure we don't make any profit, quick include a relations gift to your cousins company where you give him 50 bottles of red wine. Guess what its tax deductible! Let me tell you something even better, now your cousins company can give you exactly the same, which is tax deductible for him!
Yeah, but it's not salary, and that's the key word here. Ofc they use loopholes to fill their own pockets, nobody denies that. But in official term, those companies their employees get fuck all in salary.
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Eh sausje professionals are not going to work for free or minimal wage, and depending of the kind of nonprofit organisation you may be in need of a lot of (or mainly) professionals. That goes for the Netherlands but also for the USA.
Good. It's about time people like these were held to task, hopefully it also causes those asshats that like to trot out the "it's not a store, it's a pledge, they don't owe you anything" to shut their fucking mouths. Sadly you can't stop stupidity
"Washington state will not tolerate crowdfunding theft," said Washington's attorney general Bob Ferguson in a press release issued July 27. "If you accept money from consumers, and don’t follow through on your obligations, my office will hold you accountable."
Yup, can't cure stupidity How did I know someone was going to say that eventually? There's always, *always*, a pseudo-lawyer on these comments.. always someone to say "you're not buying a product, you're supporting an idea"
I've lost €70 in the iControlpad 2 Kickstarter - it looked great and the previous iControlpad got good reviews but I wasn't aware of the massive delays the developer always caused - and not small delays either. YEARS of delay.
The problem started after the Kickstarter ended and the dev got our money. He ...
- bought an expensive car with the money
- bought a really expensive $15.000 3D printer so he could make mock ups but on Twitter he was bragging about how cool it was and how much fun he was going to have
And then he suddenly had the brilliant idea to add LEDs to the buttons! I didn't want LEDs but a small majority did so he said "fuck you" to 45% of the people voting no and went ahead and changed the entire design.
Turns out the LEDs were a major problem - the ones he needed were in short demand and cost four times as much as he had anticipated. On top of that, coding the LEDs was a problem as well and moulding the causes was a nightmare due to the space needed for the LEDs.
Of course, he barely communicated at all, months between Kickstarter updates and people who had voted pro-LED were quickly shouting they changed their mind hoping he'd just go back to the original design which was solid.
In the end, the cost of the LEDs combined with his car and 3D printer made him run out of money. So he started to use the money of a second project to try and complete this one. Instead, he wasted that money too and the project was left with a bunch of useless parts and the guy bailed. Another guy who was semi-author had to step in and basically sell all the parts and spread the proceedings across all the backers. Out of $120 I got back $40.
If the guy had been held accountable for delivering the goods, he'd never have acted this recklessly - he knew he could get away with things if the project failed. It wasn't his money, he had little money invested and basically was gambling at our expense. If these court cases stop idiots like that, I'm all for it.
They should be held accountable. Not because they failed, but because they're not communicating with their backers as they've obviously run off with the cash.
I love those people in the comments who regurgitate the same thing over and over every time this happens:
"Making games is hard"
"Kickstarter is an investment! Nothing is guaranteed!"
etc
Shut the fuck up. What do they want, gaming sites not to report on it?
You are just shouting out some stuff.
We have consumer rights in Europe, USA, Canada and most likely in Australia and New Zealand as well.
Good! But when you pledge to a crowd funding project, you invest in a product that does not exist yet.
Of course the people who start such a project are obliged to deliver on their promises, but if they don't, what now?
I think the only way to 'alleviate' this issue a bit would be that Kickstarter holds on to the money, and it's given to the company when requested with a proper detailed use for the money.
So it would make it impossible run off immediately. (as in , requesting 50k$ for car -> Kickstarter would say no. Requesting 50k for salaries in a company of just few people -> Kickstarter would say no.
And there could be a progress check done every once in a while.
Of there would still be scamming, but it would be made more difficult + Kickstarter would definitely increase the cut they take
Also might scare a lot of devs off Kickstarter, as it would become much more like a publisher instead of just direct funder.
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What I meant with 'what now' is that it is hard to crack down on fraudulent projects and people around the globe.
The 2 cases in the USA have shown us that the backers won't get their money back most likely.
Choose the projects you back carefully.
I meant what I said before, it's about time crowdfunding became legally binding and these sorts of people need to start facing the very real threat and possibility of jail time for not providing the goods they have been paid for. It's one thing a small indie dev acquiring $5k for their RPG Maker title, it's quite another for professional "startup" outfits that take hundreds of thousands of pounds, if not millions, and then fail to produce.
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- Dude teaches himself to program and tries to make a game.
- 2 really good high school friends of his who have business education convince him to become his business and financial partners, handling all the money, while he does the coding.
- They launch a Kickstarter for "Ultimate GameDev Tutorials" showing his half made game. It gets funded.
- His partners that control the money, spent all of it on booze, bars, restaurants and strippers.
- Dude goes WTF did you do but they show him the contract they have signed and some bullshit documents that prove that all the restaurants etc were for "business" purposes meaning in the eyes of the law they are 100% ok.
- Dude leaves the company but his partners remind him they will sue him if he works on the game and releases it on his own. The contract says the game belongs to the company and THEY are the company.
- Dude will refund those that preordered as that money was separate from the Kickstarter.
Moral of the story: don't do business with friends or family.
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How did I know someone was going to say that eventually? There's always, *always*, a pseudo-lawyer on these comments.. always someone to say "you're not buying a product, you're supporting an idea"
