Issue #13 - Unclear section "Donations made through vendors"

[Philippe Cloutier]

http://www.spi-inc.org/donations/ contains the following section:


>     Donations made through vendors
>
> Several vendors (of CDs, Books etc.) allow their customers to make donations to SPI or an affiliated project when ordering materials. In order to make these donations tax deductible, several requirements must be observed:
>
>   * The receipt that the vendor issues must contain a separate item entitled "SPI Donation" (or something similar). This receipt is needed to claim the deduction from the IRS.
>   * The vendor must not claim this donation as income, since it is income for SPI.
>
> Donations made by vendors should be sent to SPI monthly, if possible.

...plus something about AmazonSmile.


There are many things unclear in there, so this can be considered as a report of multiple issues, but...


"IRS" may be a well-known acronym in the USA, but "the USA's Internal Revenue Service" would be much clearer.


It is unclear whether the requirements listed are directed at vendors or "end-users"/"end-donors". Presumably, "Donations made by vendors should be sent to SPI monthly, if possible." targets vendors, and should not feature in a page targeted at "end-users"/"end-donors".


It is also unclear what is the purpose of that section - why would a potential donor donate through a vendor? Would donating through vendors save fees or allow more payment types? If so, it would clarify to say so.

Perhaps the section acknowledges that some vendors do transfer money to SPI, to reassure customers who are considering donating through vendors, but then not listing these vendors may not reassure much, or give a false sense of safety.


While AmazonSmile is related to that, it does not allow donating (it is Amazon making a fixed donation to SPI).

-- 
Philippe Cloutier
http://www.philippecloutier.com

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.spi-inc.org/pipermail/spi-general/attachments/20180701/49bb7716/attachment.html>