DiscussMormonism.com Collection Cup

[Dr. Shades]

You had to open an escrow account to learn that putting money into it from donors you already know doesn't make the known information magically disappear from your knowledge?

No. The problem was that the real names, email addresses, and street addresses--which I DON'T know--of people who donate would BECOME known to me. I don't want, or need, to know people's personal information.

[Jersey Girl]

You had to open an escrow account to learn that putting money into it from donors you already know doesn't make the known information magically disappear from your knowledge?

No. The problem was that the real names, email addresses, and street addresses--which I DON'T know--of people who donate would BECOME known to me. I don't want, or need, to know people's personal information.

So...where are we at with this? If you have a link you can send it to me via PM.

[Marcus]

You had to open an escrow account to learn that putting money into it from donors you already know doesn't make the known information magically disappear from your knowledge?

No. The problem was that the real names, email addresses, and street addresses--which I DON'T know--of people who donate would BECOME known to me. I don't want, or need, to know people's personal information.

Oh, you're serious. This is not advice, but in my opinion you're not asking for large enough individual donations nor are you operating a 501c-3 (as far as I know) so you don't need that kind of escrow account in order to simply avoid the appearance of unethical behavior by putting donations into your personal account.

Anonymity of donors is still a separate issue, regardless of what account you stash the cash in prior to paying the bill.

[Marcus]

Concerning "anonymous" donations, I don't think it's going to happen. Granted, I have zero experience with either ecommerce or non-profits or starting a business of any kind, as Hound correctly observes. If somebody knows a way to do it, feel free to message Shades directly or myself, or bring it up here to discuss. My initial research seemed to indicate this was possible, and I pushed Shades in a certain direction fully believing that this would be achieved. When it wasn't, I went back to research it and my research suddenly indicated it was a hard "no". I thought this had been achieved last year, with Gofundme, and the only person who could say for sure, says that donations were anonymous going that route. However, this is what gofundme says:

support.gofundme.com/hc/en-us/articles/203687114-Donating-as-Anonymous-on-the-fundraiser-page

July 17, 2026 Updated
When donating on GoFundMe, you can make it so your name won’t be visible to the public on the fundraiser page. For security reasons, you can’t make an entirely anonymous donation, and the organizer, co-organizers, beneficiary, and others will be able to see your name and, sometimes, email address.

So according to gofundme, it's NOT possible to set up for anonymous donations. It could be this is new, see the date, or was always the case the the person who would know best wasn't looking at the right view and didn't realize they could access PII. My initial misunderstanding may also have come from the possibility some platforms have of limiting PII through coding, but not fundamentally.

The reason a simple thing is so difficult to achieve is all about fraud and money laundering, apparently. So the most official link Shades is going to have for now is here:

https://buy.stripe.com/7sYfZj2QPfvna6cchIcjS01

I did a test donation and he says he got it no problems. If you want to be extra cautious, wait to donate until Friday as Shades has a couple days here without access to one of his authentication factors and so he's not watching it. This could lead to overshooting.

Thanks for the extra information, Gad, I didn't see your post before i responded to Shades. I think GoFundMe is answering from a position of having to have one format to accommodate all sizes and sources of donations and types of funds and the accompanying IRS reporting requirements. I agree security and fraud issues are the reasons they can't fully anonymize the process.

But, it's not worth the trouble on your end as I seem to be the only one asking about it, so I'll figure out something on my end.

Thanks again for all your time and help!!

[Gadianton]

Hi Jersey, the official link is now:

https://buy.stripe.com/7sYfZj2QPfvna6cchIcjS01

[Jersey Girl]

Hi Jersey, the official link is now:

https://buy.stripe.com/7sYfZj2QPfvna6cchIcjS01

Okay got it and thanks, Gad! Is there an extra charge for special favors?

Shut it, Jersey.

No.

[canpakes]

Hi Jersey, the official link is now:

https://buy.stripe.com/7sYfZj2QPfvna6cchIcjS01

Gad, my understanding is that Silent Donor works with Stripe as one of their partners.

Is this link being presented as an anonymous option, or one that is essentially anonymous to typical clients and donors without expending effort to expose some financial or ID information?

[Gadianton]

Sorry, in case there is a misunderstanding, this is NOT an anonymous option for the donor, it's just an official link we can leave posted on the board.