The minimum Kicad donation to CERN is about $31.60 USD. I am guessing this is because of processing and conversion costs. If it were lower, more hobbyists would/could contribute.
What about the idea of TRUSTED 3rd parties (for profit or non-profit) with a vested interest in Kicads success, bundling smaller donations and then transferring them to CERN when the total reaches a given threshold.
For example; A company specializing in selling parts and prototyping supplies or a company providing low cost pcbs could have a check box and amount box on their order form or maybe just a donate button. Perhaps the owner of this forum could do that on his commercial site.
The devil is in the details, so the idea is to run this up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes it.
Maybe we could talk to Laen about adding this as a bundling option on OSHPark? Kind of like the $1 add on they ask you to donate at the super market? Then it could be bundled into a single donation
Is there someone from the Kicad project or CERN that could be directed to this thread? This sort of thing ought to have their blessing at least. I would rather not carry this idea to far without someone from CERN getting involved in this thread.
I received a reply from Javier Serrano at CERN. Here is a partial quote.
"I include a number of people in Cc, who also contacted me regarding this or could have an interest in it.
I am pretty sure that the CERN & Society Foundation people (Matteo, Sofia and Eleonora, in Cc) would be very happy to receive donations via trusted third parties as you suggest in your forum post. I let them comment on it directly.
Also, FYI, Eleonora informed me that they have lowered the limit of donations to 10 CHF, which is the best they can do given transaction fees and admin costs.
Collecting donations implies costs, that are usually a percentage of the donated amount, plus a fixed amount per transaction. Let¹s make a couple of examples based on Paypal fees system (https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/marketingweb?cmd=_display-xborder-fees-o utside) Credit Card online payment systems have in general a similar fees structure but apply much lower % fees compared to PayPal.
Paypal applies to charities a 3.9% transaction fee plus a 0.55 CHF fixed fee per transaction (Swiss charities).
You give 100 CHF: Paypal will keep 4.45 CHF, i.e. 4.45%
You give 10 CHF (the present minimum allowed on our website): Paypal will keep 0.94 CHF, i.e. 9.4%
You give 1 CHF: Paypal will keep 0.59 CHF, i.e. 59%
By simply looking at those numbers it is clear that by lowering too much the minimum donation we will stop raising funds for KiCAD and do it for PayPal instead, that is not at all our goal. This would also be misleading for donors who are thinking to support KiCad and instead pay PayPal for the large majority, instead of just a percentage for the service.
To reply directly to Javier. Yes we are happy to receive donations from trusted third parties. In case you decide to go for this option I strongly suggest that you ask for third parties fees structure. I would be surprised if they manage to have much better conditions than us, as fees are quite standardised. Watch carefully because they might allow you to make micro donations but the final amount reaching KiCAD could be highly eroded by all transaction fees involved, and you end up financing third party entities and only marginally supporting KiCAD.
I hope this helps, Matteo
Given that the minimum donation is now 10 vs 30 CHF (about $10.50), I am not sure my idea is workable unless the total overhead is significantly less than the above figures. A paypal button on a third party site is out of the question. If the total overhead for the trusted 3rd party idea could be lower than the above figures, it could still work.
If we had a trusted, Kicad-loving friend in Switzerland, could we do (free) paypal-to-paypal transfers to the friend and then have the friend write a check and post it to CERN? Maybe pool the funds for a period of time (or money) before the check is sent?
As much as I love PayPal it is not the only way to transfer money. How about opening a bank account in the US and use Square Cash which is 1.9% or Google Wallet which is free.
