We started allowing fundraisers for our active members a few months ago, and wanted to follow up on how things have been going. Based on the feedback so far, we've pulled together a crowd funding policy - and we’d love to get your collective feedback.

There are a few different kinds of fundraising campaigns:

1. Campaigns for active Hellobee members
2. Campaigns for national tragedies (e.g. an official fundraiser for victims of the Boston Marathon, or for victims of the shootings at Parliament Hill in Ottawa)
3. Campaigns for friends of members (e.g. if my friend or coworker is sick and has a medical fundraiser)

1. Campaigns for active Hellobee members

In the past few months, we've had a few public crowdfunding campaigns for our members: one for Mr.Badger’s son Lucas, and another for Sandy’s daughter Ava. We also stickied both threads for a day or so, so that people were likely to see them.

Now that we’ve had a few category one fundraisers, we have a much greater comfort level with them - subject to a few guidelines:

* We always feel a lot more comfortable if a trusted community member is coordinating the fundraising. That way, we can be a lot more sure that the money is going to the person in need.
* Both the member and the coordinate should be active members (otherwise it just gets complicated)
* Regular updates from the fundraising coordinator (or the fundraiser designee) are always appreciated! But it doesn’t feel right if someone bumps a thread by mentioning how much money has been raised, and/or requesting that people to donate more money.

We ask that anyone thinking of posting a category one fundraiser post to the help forum first and let us know… we can work with you to get it up asap!

We’re also glad to sticky campaigns for active Hellobee members, just because there is often often updates in the thread that people might be interested in.

Campaigns for national tragedies

Fundraisers for national tragedies are also OK to post, subject to a few guidelines:

* The fundraisers have been vetted as “real” by some sort of credible outside group.
* The fundraisers go to the people affected (not to a cause or issue-based organization)

We haven’t stickied any campaigns of this type, just because it’s hard to vet this stuff and we want to limit the number of campaigns that we sticky. But we're happy to put it up for discussion and a vote (please see poll below).

Campaigns for friends of members

It is impossible to know if these campaigns are real or not, so we just can’t allow them.

We’d love your feedback on the above policy - especially category one and two fundraisers. Please vote in the poll below, and let us know what you think in the comments below!