I’m not sure what is meant by “articulated” here, but admin work can actually be prioritized in grassroots donations and funding for organizations that have cultivated real energy, community, and trust around their work (I know and understand this from the personal experience of having fundraised hundreds of thousands of dollars for such work over the course of years, and in much more challenging organizational contexts than the one Resonate is in).
Regarding accounting, it’s virtually a non-issue, as we are legally a for-profit entity, and the “buckets” would be pooling resources into the same bank account(s).
The point of this approach to receiving donations and support is to give a wider range of supporters a better (and more organized) sense of what is going on, and a sense that they can more directly impact/stimulate activity in an area of interest for/to them. It also allows us to more concretely establish and communicate what kind of resources we need for different areas, and to more directly incentivize more support for said areas in meeting different goals through the use of these resources.
On top of all of this, people (in general) value more transparency (rather than less) and, I think, will be more likely to give when/if they feel there is an even clearer sense of how their donations are going to be used (especially with for-profit entities).
At the end of the day, the co-op is (ideally) making the decisions (democratically) about what to do with resources, and with the interests of broader communities taken into account. The fundraising and project goals can (and, in my view, should) be prioritized according to what we feel is most important, and I think we can/should make our case for that, while also understanding and centering what is going to be of most interest for the communities we are actually serving (and want to serve). This could be done via a simple fundraising roadmap in which each completed fundraising “goal” (with a progress meter of some sort) opens up access to another fundraising goal and/or stage, for example.
A normal donation page is vague and can make people feel like they’re throwing money into the ether a little bit, in my experience. Especially when there is so much going on under one organization. (People can end up wondering, “How is my money even having an impact? Is it having an impact? Is it worth it?”) People (in my experience) also like feeling like they can more closely track what is going on over time, and how this relates to the support they (and others) have given (this can actually serve as a conscious and subconscious incentive for people to donate, or keep donating). Lastly, folks will have their own respective interests in donating to Resonate, and it helps to communicate an awareness of what these various interests are (or could be) upfront, while also explaining how these interests can’t be addressed without us receiving certain support (which we articulate in clear and accessible terms) in certain areas. All of this conveys awareness and stimulates deeper trust in the effort(s) amongst donors (or potential donors).
On the back end, the money is ultimately going into one “bucket,” and that “bucket” is our bank account (in my understanding).
I’d like to (for anyone else who finds themselves here) echo @Hakanto’s original suggestion that folks please check out (and actually wrestle with) some of the points made in this post if there are questions or issues around this topic and the communicated approach.
While I certainly don’t know everything, and am not always right, I have fundraised a lot of money for years now (more than anything Resonate has been able to bring in in the last few years, and honestly off of much less than what Resonate is actually in a position to offer as a for-profit business entity), and have also watched (and learned from) people who have fundraised much more than me (millions). Everyone can (obviously) take what I’m offering here or leave it, though.
