I am afraid that choosing the right crowdfunding platform is some more difficult process than initially expected. It looks there are plenty of them, but after some closer examination – so far I can’t recommend any.
Main objectives were:
- Open time period for collecting the money, we are about to start a long journey. Unless we get one day to some universal EU ruling controlling airport fees (hopefully…), it makes sense to keep collecting resources, so to be ready for legal actions where necessary
- All collected resources we should be able to devote for our goals, not goals of charities etc. connected with a particular crowdfunding platform
- Accessible for at least the whole EU
- Safe from the perspective of contributors, meaning that money outflow is restricted for dedicated goal or by confirmation of two persons
- Reasonable with fees (but at this parameter I even stopped paying much attention at the end…)
So far checked “Crowd Justice, “Funded Justice”, “Kickstarter”,” Go Fund Me”, “Razoo” , “Crowdrise”, “Crowdfunding”, “Crowdfunder” – and nothing in line with the above criteria.
Unfortunately there is a problem with fast moving forward… But just a temporary one. And any ideas of course more than welcome…
I would expect a lot of people to say that they will participate if everyone does, which becomes a paragraph 22 if there is no such platform. Maybe someone has another idea
It will definitely have to be crowdfunded. Otherwise it will be like a fly-in: everybody waits to see how many others turn up.
I am a completely ignorant on such matters, I do trust you guys can find the better solution.
Shouldn’t be worth to establish a communication line with AOPA, keeping our own initiative and decision process, but for a matter of coordination and have the information pass through AOPA members all around Europe? I do believe, despite the excellent numbers presented by Peter, that we could reach a higher number of GA pilot and owners.
Most European AOPAs are either cosy lunching clubs, or have complex relationships (some positive, some negative) with parts of the GA scene.
On a single issue campaign like this, they are best bypassed.
Peter wrote:
On a single issue campaign like this, they are best bypassed.
So what do you propose?
I would certainly participate.
In France, my understanding is that landing fees must be approved by some authority and are in general reasonable.
The issue is the handling fee, which, as I understand it, is not regulated.
The handling becomes mandatory when there is a security requirement for accessing the airside. And from that point we have to pay ridiculous fees.
I’m sure something could be done about it.
The French AOPA have a website, where they explain that they do important things for us, but what do they actually do ( if they do do something), I don’t know.
Vladimir wrote:
I would expect a lot of people to say that they will participate if everyone does, which becomes a paragraph 22 if there is no such platform.
I fully agree. Please have a look at gogetfunding.com, I find this one as best fitting from the examined so far.
It is UK based; covers Europe, US and quite a number of other countries; allows to set up an open collection time; accepts cards and PayPal; 6,9% fee (on the lower side).
Unfortunately, they do not have a mechanism of co-authorization of outgoing transfers, a common problem for majority of crowd funding sites.
But I have an idea about how to eventually move it forward, using some other safety mechanism to compensate this debilitation…
A person setting up the crowd funding account should be someone of trust, known to all of us, from fly-ins etc.. And problem resolved. Peter 
?
From my side I declare a full support with preparation of all necessary data/ pictures to fill the crowd funding page, the “trusted one” will only have to open a dedicated bank account.
What do you think?
Bart wrote:
What do you think?
I agree with everything as long as I am not responsible for money
BTW I donated few times via https://www.justgiving.com – they charge 5% and maybe it’s worth of checking.
I agree with Emir above.
Also Cobalt’s post #29 above is relevant. The project would have to involve purely instructing / paying for lawyers at a fixed rate. Nobody is going to fund litigation which could backfire and land everybody with some large bill.
