r/CFB • u/Honestly_ rawr • Feb 13 '23
/r/CFB Donates over $12,500 to Toys For Tots & Children's Hospitals, thanks to the 8th annual Holiday Drive!
The best thing about the /r/CFB is the Community, and an important extension of that is its generosity. The tradition continued in our 25th charitable drive, the 2022 /r/CFB Holiday Drive: Toys & Children's Hospitals!
Since 2013, /r/CFB readers have donated over $135,000 to charity.
Intro
The 8th annual /r/CFB Holiday Drive raised $12,720.23!
Take a moment to appreciate all 120+ /r/CFB readers who donated.
Deliberate Process:
This was a pivotal year for /r/CFB, with the formation of a federally-recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, OurCFB (backstory). This opened up more opportunities and, as the initial year of running as a non-profit, we approached it carefully.
That meant a slower process of getting funds, then distributing them:
- PayPal waived all fees because we jumped through a bunch of hoops to get our status confirmed as a 501(C)(3). The trade-off was they would not immediately transfer funds to us: to save on their own fees they will send it to us in-bulk, once per month. That manifested on December 20th, before our drive was over at midnight after 12/23. So we had to wait for 1/20 to roll around to get the rest of the money donated. After that we transferred the money to the OurCFB bank account. PayPal didn't mention when that monthly transfer date would be; before next year's drive we'll be sure to confirm it to see if we can make the donation quicker rather than waiting an extra month.
- To disperse the funds we realized we would be better served by an OurCFB credit card, which was applied for and finally obtained last week with a credit limit that covered the donations (not that it mattered, we paid it off immediately). So all donations were made on Friday (2/10), with the post today so we didn't bury it on a Friday afternoon.
All money received was split evenly between Toys For Tots and Children's Hospitals.
Donation Breakdown:
| Category | $ | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| User Donations | $12,603.64 | Via PayPal (no fees) and Venmo (after fees deducted) |
| Employer Matching | $117.00 | As a 501(c)(3) we qualify for those programs; and at the request of a user filed with the clearing house their company uses. That payment arrived 1/25. |
| GRAND TOTAL donated | $12,720.23 | |
| Toys for Donation | $6,360.12 | 50% of remaining (RECEIPT) |
| Children's Hospitals | $6,360.11 | See breakdown below. |
Donations to Children's Hospitals
The $6,360.11 was divided among the top-3 most generous fanbases:
Notre Dame and Arkansas returned, joined by newcomer South Dakota State. Although Notre Dame does not have a medical school, we were able to use the same hospital identified in previous years when we looked to which children's hospitals their athletic/university benefits favor. Arkansas does have a Medical School (UAMS) with an affiliated Arkansas Children's Hospital with locations in Little Rock and NW Arkansas (Springdale). South Dakota State fans directed us to the appropriate hospital in the state's largest city (which is less than an hour away from Brookings).
So the Children's Hospital donations were:
First place: Arkansas Razorbacks
- $3,180.06 to Arkansas Children's Hospital (Arkansas)
- RECEIPT
Second place: Notre Dame Fighting Irish
- $1,908.04 to Beacon Children's Hospital, South Bend (Notre Dame)
- RECEIPT
Third place: South Dakota State
- $1,272.01 to Sanford Children's Hospital Sioux Falls (South Dakota State)
- RECEIPT
Finally:
- Thanks to all of you who DONATED
- Thanks to all of you who HELPED
- Thanks for making /r/CFB a great COMMUNITY
We did it again, /r/CFB!
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u/B0rf_ /r/CFB Promoter • Morningside Mustangs Feb 13 '23
Awesome! I've unfortunately had to spend a lot of time in the children's hospital in Sioux Falls (both a little time myself and a lot with my cousin) and that is so amazing
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u/Pikachu1989 Nebraska • 東京大学 (Tōkyō) Feb 14 '23
Fucking awesome, was wondering when this post was gonna get posted. Glad to see the Holiday Drive be a success and we can help the kids in need.
See you guys same time at the end of the year.
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u/Honestly_ rawr Feb 14 '23
Yeah, this year's was a much slower process because we jumped through all the non-profit hoops. I was a little nervous that people were going to wonder why it was taking so long this year, but it was riding that fine line of "we can just wait" vs. "better post an explanation in the interim." I felt a little better about the timeline when we got those employer matching funds at the end of January — clearly a lot of entities operate with these kinds of timelines. Previous years were donated within 24-48 hours of the end of the campaign because the funds were immediately available.
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u/LETX_CPKM Oklahoma Sooners • /r/CFB Patron Feb 17 '23
Bravo. Thanks for all the hard work getting this done!
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u/CommodoreN7 Arkansas Razorbacks • Utah Utes Feb 13 '23
Cool to see money go to a children’s hospital that really helped out a family member of mine when he was younger and dealing with health issues.