1. Do you *ONLY* assist the "Sponsored Families" listed on THIS PAGE? What happens to the "standby" / "waitlist" families?
- NO - We do not ONLY provide support to our sponsored families. We provide assistance to more than fifty families, typically 100-125 children every year, and the number has climbed every year. You can see the statistics and details on how many families we were able to assist in each year's Season Wrap-Up.
2. What do you provide to the Sponsored Families?
Each year, we sponsor approximately 15-25 families (that number has grown and changed each year). When a family is sponsored - they receive ALL the help we offer. This means that the family receives clothing, shoes and winter supplies (coat, hat, gloves, etc.) for every family member - the receive a Christmas Tree, lights, ornaments and decor - whatever they need. They receive gift wrap and all the supplies needed. They receive household cleaning products like and paper products, as well as hygiene products such a soap, shampoo, etc. Most importantly - sponsored families WISH LISTS are covered, to the best of our ability. We aren't always able to get EVERY item a child wants - but we DO focus on getting as many of the items as possible, AND we are sure to provide an EQUITABLE amount of gifts, so that what every child in the family receives is FAIR.
We communicate REGULARLY with our sponsored families, giving them the opportunity for one-off items, such as a Power Wheels vehicle, a Go Kart, an electric bicycle, a full set of dishes, a Queen Size bed frame, a brand new espresso machine, a desktop family computer, etc etc - as these items are donated, we reach out to our sponsored families and communicate with them to arrange the pickup of items. We do our best to be FAIR and to serve families in the most equitable way.
BECAUSE we provide SO MUCH specialized attention to the sponsored families- we of course have a LIMIT on the number of families we can assist.
3. So what happens to families who aren't sponsored by Dec 22nd? Do they not receive any help at all?
Our goal is to assist EVERY eligible family who truly needs our help. Unfortunately, we are limited by two things:
If we don't receive enough physical donations needed to cover a reasonable amount of the needs for any of our Sponsored Families (gifts from their children's wish lists, toiletries, Winter coats, cleaning & household paper products, Christmas trees and decor, etc etc)- we use the monetary donations that we've raised, in order to fill in the gaps of what we need. We often end up shopping for Christmas Ornaments and toys/gifts from the kids' wish lists.
Once the sponsored families are served - we then serve the wait list families in the order their applications were received / processed. If we DO have everything we need to sponsor a family when we get to the packing process (usually starting on Dec 20-22nd) - we will let a family know they have been Sponsored.
This is how we address our Wait List and how we serve the Wait List Families.
All the families are contacted one by one, and we will go over with them what items we DO have available to them. Often we have clothing for some or all of their family members, and often, we have gifts for their younger children. (By the nature of the program - more often we get donations of toys -making it easier to serve families with younger kids. Older children often want more specific or more expensive items, making it harder to have matches to their wish lists.) We will send texts or emails to the family, letting them know that we have X, Y & Z for this child, A, B, C, D and E for this child, and if there are any children that we do not have items for - we will often use some of the donation funds to get at least SOMETHING from the child's wish list. We will let the families decide if they are able to come to us to collect what items we DO have. If they confirm that they would like the items we have available - we put them on our "packing list" -give them a pickup date and time, and then we will pack all those items, along with gift wrap, gift bags, tape, etc - so the family is able to wrap the gifts.
The larger the family, or the more kids they have over the age of 10/11/12- the harder it is for us to move a family to our Sponsorship List. The more money we raise in our GoFundMe, and the more donations we collect- the more families we can remove from our WaitList, and move up to Full Sponsorship. As it also takes TIME to organize and shop for the needed items - the sooner we raise that money, the more quickly we can remove families from our wait list.
The main difference between a Sponsored Family and a Waitlist Family - is that we can't guarantee that we'll have an equal amount of gifts for each of their children. It is our hope that if we're able to provide a number of gifts from our donation stock - (we do our best to supplement needed items for the family's children by shopping for items using our collected monetary donations) - that the families can use what little they DO have, to focus on purchasing items for the kids we WEREN'T able to give them items for.
For example- if a family has a 5 month old child, a 4 year old, a 7 year old and a 17 year old child - we may be able to give them all the gifts they need for the three younger children. We will check the wish list for the oldest child, and provide any items we have for them as well. If we do not have any items that match that child's wish list - we will check our remaining budget and the number of families we have left, and then we will attempt to shop for an item, or items. We will then pack all those items for the family, and arrange for them to pick the items up. We do our best to keep families informed during the packing process.
4. When will families REALLY know how much and what kind of help they are going to get from Project Christmas?
SPONSORED FAMILIES - they should feel comfortable that we will provide enough items for their entire family - including enough gifts from their children's wish lists, for their children to have a nice holiday. We communicate with families during the packing process, so they will get an idea of the items we're providing to them. We are able to communicate with Sponsored Families - in the event that they know their child WILL be getting a gift from them, or from other family members, so that we don't duplicate that gift. We don't have the ability to provide gift receipts, even for new items - so we are careful to be sure that a child isn't going to get multiple copies of any one gift. We often send families questions to better chose gifts for their children, and we often send photos via text message to the parents as we pack boxes full of gifts for their children, so they know what they will be getting. If there's a SPECIFIC HIGHLY REQUESTED item on a child's wish list, we make sure to communicate with the parents during the lead-up to packing as to weather or not we will have that item for the child. We do our best to get whatever items (within reason) the child wants, and that we can afford.
We DO NOT often provide families with gift cards over the amount of $10 (we will sometimes provide small gift cards for gaming to kids who are very into video games) - we DO NOT give gifts of cash or larger gift cards. We are unable to assist families with utility or rent payments. If we do have one-off more expensive items that are donated specifically for a certain family, we will be in touch with that family to let them know. (In the past, we have had computers, ipads, video games or game systems, laptops, tablets, tvs, etc) donated, but those things are never guaranteed.
WAIT LIST FAMILIES
This is a difficult one - and something we know is VERY hard on the families - but unfortunately - until a family is SPONSORED - they won't REALLY know what we have available until the week before Christmas.
There are several reasons for this:
1) We are still collecting both physical and monetary donations right up until the MOMENT we begin packing boxes for the families on Dec 20/21/22nd. This means we truly won't know what all we have available for the families until then. As much as we wish all the donations would come in EARLY and that we'd be able to guarentee everyone a really nice Christmas - inevitably many years - people don't feel the desire to donate until we're in a crunch, we still don't have all the families covered, and our days are counting down to the end. As a result, MANY of our larger donations don't typically come in until the very last minute.
2) We have to go in some kind of order, to be fair to everyone and to serve as many families as possible. We start by going in order of application date AFTER the Sponsored Families are packed for. This means that we will have no idea what we have available to Family #46 - until ALL the families BEFORE them have been packed for. The later a family applied/was approved - the later they will be in line. We do our best to spread the donations we have out among the wait list families - we won't give ALL the items we have that would be suitable for an 8 year old girl to the FIRST 8 year old girl that's on our wait list - we make sure to choose a nice selection of items from her wish list, and pack them, and then we move on - but the later a family is in our line - the less items that we will inevitably have available by the time we get to packing for their family.
3) The budget. Typically we don't have to spend much of our budget on the Sponsored Families... .this is because we don't agree to sponsor a family until we KNOW that we ALREADY have enough donations to pretty much fully serve their family. We may need to pick up a FEW specific items for a Sponsored Family - but we typically know what those items are, and how much they will cost. The rest of the budget is spent on our wait list families.
We have to make our donated funds go as FAR as we possibly can - while still ensuring that we're giving QUALITY gifts. We don't shop at the dollar store - we ALWAYS do our best to make sure we're giving families items that are going to USE and VALUE - not things that are going to clutter their homes and end up in the trash - that's why we try our best to make sure we're giving the families items that their kids REALLY want.
EXAMPLE: If we have, say, 50 families on the wait list - Imagine that we raised $3000 for the entire holiday season. If we spent about $500 on items needed for the Sponsored Families - that would leave us $2500 for the Wait List families. That's just $50 per family for the ENTIRE waitlist!
If Waitlist Family #1 has three teenage children, and two young children - we may only have gifts for the younger two. This would mean that we would try to get an item or items for each of the older children, and we would need to BUY all of those items using our available budget.
For this reason -we can't divide up the budget evenly among the Waitlist families. If we did that - using our example above - we would only have $2500 divided up among FIFTY families -leaving us just $50 per family. If family #1 on the waitlist has three children that we don't have any donated gifts to match - this would leave us just $16.50 per child! There's just not much you can do with that amount.
As a result, we will go through our wait list- in an approximate order - and we will see what all we have, and which families we can best serve with the donations we do already have. If we have a family that has six young children - and we have enough gifts for ALL of five of the children, but only a few items for the sixth child - we can use a little bit of the donation budget to purchase items to be able to move that family to the sponsorship list - buying the remaining needed items.
We will do our best to serve as many families as we can with our remaining budget- trying to fairly divide up the amount we have, to make it go as far as we can. This is why EVERY DOLLAR WE RAISE is crucially important - in the last days, as we approach Christmas, our budget totally determines how much we can help those families that remain un-sponsored.
5. Is Project Christmas a tax exempt 501(c)3 charity and can we collect donations from big businesses?
No - Project Christmas is not a tax exempt charity, and as such, donations are not able to be written off on your taxes, Because we are a small, family run, seasonal charity (we don't operate year round) - the cost of obtaining and maintaining a tax exempt charity would not make sense at this time. We would need to build a board of directors, hold meetings, and hire a professional to oversee the spending of our annual donation budget.
Our BIGGEST year, we raised just under $3000. We spend every single penny on the families and fulfilling kid's wish lists, and we really want to keep it that way. Registering as a 501(c)3 requires quite a bit of paperwork, and it requires that any financial donations be overseen by a professional - either a money management firm, a lawyer, etc. And then you need to file paperwork that basically shows exactly where the money you raised is spent each year, on the IRS forms.
While registering as a 501(c)3 in and of itself isn't very expensive- having someone oversee donations costs a decent amount, and makes it so that you need to raise about $9-10,000 a year, in order to make it worth spending $1500 or so on that service.
The Christmas Project started as a small family project, that we only do at the holidays. While you certainly CAN obtain a 501(c)3 tax exemption for a seasonal charity- it would really only make sense to do so, if we were raising enough in funding to afford the legal oversight of the donations. Basically, since we, at most, raise about $3k a year- we would spent slightly half or more, on the IRS fillings, and proving where the money is spent... Sort of making it impossible to fund the actual process.
It's completely legal to run a charity that's not a 501(c)3. Basically, We have to claim the PayPal payments/donations as income, so we pay taxes on it yearly. I just take that hit, bc that's still far less than we'd pay to have and keep the 501 the tax exempt status. There are benefits to having it- for sure. You can ask big corporations for donations, for example. We may, eventually, if the project keeps growing- go that route. But so far, it hasn't made financial sense. I don't want any of the donations covering our operating costs- right now, my family covers all the operating costs; we pay for all the gas, the copies and flyers we put out, the website and domain name, the storage unit fees, the rent for the warehouse, etc etc. If we became a 501(c)3, I wouldn't legally be allowed to pay those expenses for the charity, it would be considered "comingling funds" (even though that seems silly- paying bills for a charity shouldn't be the same as the charity paying my bills, for example- but legally it is!)
Anyway, we do keep growing, and if we end up getting more people involved outside the family, we may develop a board of directors and go that route. As it is, we've grown to the point that we do now have year-round storage etc. But for now, we want to ensure that the little bit we do raise, 100% goes towards the kids wish lists, and so we've chosen not to get the tax exemption currently. If we do end up going that route though, we'll absolutely start working with companies, seeking grants, and letting everyone know that donations are tax write-offs. The benefits of doing it are there- it's just an expensive and involved legal process that didn't make sense when we started as a small family project.
- NO - We do not ONLY provide support to our sponsored families. We provide assistance to more than fifty families, typically 100-125 children every year, and the number has climbed every year. You can see the statistics and details on how many families we were able to assist in each year's Season Wrap-Up.
2. What do you provide to the Sponsored Families?
Each year, we sponsor approximately 15-25 families (that number has grown and changed each year). When a family is sponsored - they receive ALL the help we offer. This means that the family receives clothing, shoes and winter supplies (coat, hat, gloves, etc.) for every family member - the receive a Christmas Tree, lights, ornaments and decor - whatever they need. They receive gift wrap and all the supplies needed. They receive household cleaning products like and paper products, as well as hygiene products such a soap, shampoo, etc. Most importantly - sponsored families WISH LISTS are covered, to the best of our ability. We aren't always able to get EVERY item a child wants - but we DO focus on getting as many of the items as possible, AND we are sure to provide an EQUITABLE amount of gifts, so that what every child in the family receives is FAIR.
We communicate REGULARLY with our sponsored families, giving them the opportunity for one-off items, such as a Power Wheels vehicle, a Go Kart, an electric bicycle, a full set of dishes, a Queen Size bed frame, a brand new espresso machine, a desktop family computer, etc etc - as these items are donated, we reach out to our sponsored families and communicate with them to arrange the pickup of items. We do our best to be FAIR and to serve families in the most equitable way.
BECAUSE we provide SO MUCH specialized attention to the sponsored families- we of course have a LIMIT on the number of families we can assist.
3. So what happens to families who aren't sponsored by Dec 22nd? Do they not receive any help at all?
Our goal is to assist EVERY eligible family who truly needs our help. Unfortunately, we are limited by two things:
- TIME
- & the AMOUNT of Donations (Both Physical and Monetary) donations that we receive every year.
If we don't receive enough physical donations needed to cover a reasonable amount of the needs for any of our Sponsored Families (gifts from their children's wish lists, toiletries, Winter coats, cleaning & household paper products, Christmas trees and decor, etc etc)- we use the monetary donations that we've raised, in order to fill in the gaps of what we need. We often end up shopping for Christmas Ornaments and toys/gifts from the kids' wish lists.
Once the sponsored families are served - we then serve the wait list families in the order their applications were received / processed. If we DO have everything we need to sponsor a family when we get to the packing process (usually starting on Dec 20-22nd) - we will let a family know they have been Sponsored.
This is how we address our Wait List and how we serve the Wait List Families.
All the families are contacted one by one, and we will go over with them what items we DO have available to them. Often we have clothing for some or all of their family members, and often, we have gifts for their younger children. (By the nature of the program - more often we get donations of toys -making it easier to serve families with younger kids. Older children often want more specific or more expensive items, making it harder to have matches to their wish lists.) We will send texts or emails to the family, letting them know that we have X, Y & Z for this child, A, B, C, D and E for this child, and if there are any children that we do not have items for - we will often use some of the donation funds to get at least SOMETHING from the child's wish list. We will let the families decide if they are able to come to us to collect what items we DO have. If they confirm that they would like the items we have available - we put them on our "packing list" -give them a pickup date and time, and then we will pack all those items, along with gift wrap, gift bags, tape, etc - so the family is able to wrap the gifts.
The larger the family, or the more kids they have over the age of 10/11/12- the harder it is for us to move a family to our Sponsorship List. The more money we raise in our GoFundMe, and the more donations we collect- the more families we can remove from our WaitList, and move up to Full Sponsorship. As it also takes TIME to organize and shop for the needed items - the sooner we raise that money, the more quickly we can remove families from our wait list.
The main difference between a Sponsored Family and a Waitlist Family - is that we can't guarantee that we'll have an equal amount of gifts for each of their children. It is our hope that if we're able to provide a number of gifts from our donation stock - (we do our best to supplement needed items for the family's children by shopping for items using our collected monetary donations) - that the families can use what little they DO have, to focus on purchasing items for the kids we WEREN'T able to give them items for.
For example- if a family has a 5 month old child, a 4 year old, a 7 year old and a 17 year old child - we may be able to give them all the gifts they need for the three younger children. We will check the wish list for the oldest child, and provide any items we have for them as well. If we do not have any items that match that child's wish list - we will check our remaining budget and the number of families we have left, and then we will attempt to shop for an item, or items. We will then pack all those items for the family, and arrange for them to pick the items up. We do our best to keep families informed during the packing process.
4. When will families REALLY know how much and what kind of help they are going to get from Project Christmas?
SPONSORED FAMILIES - they should feel comfortable that we will provide enough items for their entire family - including enough gifts from their children's wish lists, for their children to have a nice holiday. We communicate with families during the packing process, so they will get an idea of the items we're providing to them. We are able to communicate with Sponsored Families - in the event that they know their child WILL be getting a gift from them, or from other family members, so that we don't duplicate that gift. We don't have the ability to provide gift receipts, even for new items - so we are careful to be sure that a child isn't going to get multiple copies of any one gift. We often send families questions to better chose gifts for their children, and we often send photos via text message to the parents as we pack boxes full of gifts for their children, so they know what they will be getting. If there's a SPECIFIC HIGHLY REQUESTED item on a child's wish list, we make sure to communicate with the parents during the lead-up to packing as to weather or not we will have that item for the child. We do our best to get whatever items (within reason) the child wants, and that we can afford.
We DO NOT often provide families with gift cards over the amount of $10 (we will sometimes provide small gift cards for gaming to kids who are very into video games) - we DO NOT give gifts of cash or larger gift cards. We are unable to assist families with utility or rent payments. If we do have one-off more expensive items that are donated specifically for a certain family, we will be in touch with that family to let them know. (In the past, we have had computers, ipads, video games or game systems, laptops, tablets, tvs, etc) donated, but those things are never guaranteed.
WAIT LIST FAMILIES
This is a difficult one - and something we know is VERY hard on the families - but unfortunately - until a family is SPONSORED - they won't REALLY know what we have available until the week before Christmas.
There are several reasons for this:
1) We are still collecting both physical and monetary donations right up until the MOMENT we begin packing boxes for the families on Dec 20/21/22nd. This means we truly won't know what all we have available for the families until then. As much as we wish all the donations would come in EARLY and that we'd be able to guarentee everyone a really nice Christmas - inevitably many years - people don't feel the desire to donate until we're in a crunch, we still don't have all the families covered, and our days are counting down to the end. As a result, MANY of our larger donations don't typically come in until the very last minute.
2) We have to go in some kind of order, to be fair to everyone and to serve as many families as possible. We start by going in order of application date AFTER the Sponsored Families are packed for. This means that we will have no idea what we have available to Family #46 - until ALL the families BEFORE them have been packed for. The later a family applied/was approved - the later they will be in line. We do our best to spread the donations we have out among the wait list families - we won't give ALL the items we have that would be suitable for an 8 year old girl to the FIRST 8 year old girl that's on our wait list - we make sure to choose a nice selection of items from her wish list, and pack them, and then we move on - but the later a family is in our line - the less items that we will inevitably have available by the time we get to packing for their family.
3) The budget. Typically we don't have to spend much of our budget on the Sponsored Families... .this is because we don't agree to sponsor a family until we KNOW that we ALREADY have enough donations to pretty much fully serve their family. We may need to pick up a FEW specific items for a Sponsored Family - but we typically know what those items are, and how much they will cost. The rest of the budget is spent on our wait list families.
We have to make our donated funds go as FAR as we possibly can - while still ensuring that we're giving QUALITY gifts. We don't shop at the dollar store - we ALWAYS do our best to make sure we're giving families items that are going to USE and VALUE - not things that are going to clutter their homes and end up in the trash - that's why we try our best to make sure we're giving the families items that their kids REALLY want.
EXAMPLE: If we have, say, 50 families on the wait list - Imagine that we raised $3000 for the entire holiday season. If we spent about $500 on items needed for the Sponsored Families - that would leave us $2500 for the Wait List families. That's just $50 per family for the ENTIRE waitlist!
If Waitlist Family #1 has three teenage children, and two young children - we may only have gifts for the younger two. This would mean that we would try to get an item or items for each of the older children, and we would need to BUY all of those items using our available budget.
For this reason -we can't divide up the budget evenly among the Waitlist families. If we did that - using our example above - we would only have $2500 divided up among FIFTY families -leaving us just $50 per family. If family #1 on the waitlist has three children that we don't have any donated gifts to match - this would leave us just $16.50 per child! There's just not much you can do with that amount.
As a result, we will go through our wait list- in an approximate order - and we will see what all we have, and which families we can best serve with the donations we do already have. If we have a family that has six young children - and we have enough gifts for ALL of five of the children, but only a few items for the sixth child - we can use a little bit of the donation budget to purchase items to be able to move that family to the sponsorship list - buying the remaining needed items.
We will do our best to serve as many families as we can with our remaining budget- trying to fairly divide up the amount we have, to make it go as far as we can. This is why EVERY DOLLAR WE RAISE is crucially important - in the last days, as we approach Christmas, our budget totally determines how much we can help those families that remain un-sponsored.
5. Is Project Christmas a tax exempt 501(c)3 charity and can we collect donations from big businesses?
No - Project Christmas is not a tax exempt charity, and as such, donations are not able to be written off on your taxes, Because we are a small, family run, seasonal charity (we don't operate year round) - the cost of obtaining and maintaining a tax exempt charity would not make sense at this time. We would need to build a board of directors, hold meetings, and hire a professional to oversee the spending of our annual donation budget.
Our BIGGEST year, we raised just under $3000. We spend every single penny on the families and fulfilling kid's wish lists, and we really want to keep it that way. Registering as a 501(c)3 requires quite a bit of paperwork, and it requires that any financial donations be overseen by a professional - either a money management firm, a lawyer, etc. And then you need to file paperwork that basically shows exactly where the money you raised is spent each year, on the IRS forms.
While registering as a 501(c)3 in and of itself isn't very expensive- having someone oversee donations costs a decent amount, and makes it so that you need to raise about $9-10,000 a year, in order to make it worth spending $1500 or so on that service.
The Christmas Project started as a small family project, that we only do at the holidays. While you certainly CAN obtain a 501(c)3 tax exemption for a seasonal charity- it would really only make sense to do so, if we were raising enough in funding to afford the legal oversight of the donations. Basically, since we, at most, raise about $3k a year- we would spent slightly half or more, on the IRS fillings, and proving where the money is spent... Sort of making it impossible to fund the actual process.
It's completely legal to run a charity that's not a 501(c)3. Basically, We have to claim the PayPal payments/donations as income, so we pay taxes on it yearly. I just take that hit, bc that's still far less than we'd pay to have and keep the 501 the tax exempt status. There are benefits to having it- for sure. You can ask big corporations for donations, for example. We may, eventually, if the project keeps growing- go that route. But so far, it hasn't made financial sense. I don't want any of the donations covering our operating costs- right now, my family covers all the operating costs; we pay for all the gas, the copies and flyers we put out, the website and domain name, the storage unit fees, the rent for the warehouse, etc etc. If we became a 501(c)3, I wouldn't legally be allowed to pay those expenses for the charity, it would be considered "comingling funds" (even though that seems silly- paying bills for a charity shouldn't be the same as the charity paying my bills, for example- but legally it is!)
Anyway, we do keep growing, and if we end up getting more people involved outside the family, we may develop a board of directors and go that route. As it is, we've grown to the point that we do now have year-round storage etc. But for now, we want to ensure that the little bit we do raise, 100% goes towards the kids wish lists, and so we've chosen not to get the tax exemption currently. If we do end up going that route though, we'll absolutely start working with companies, seeking grants, and letting everyone know that donations are tax write-offs. The benefits of doing it are there- it's just an expensive and involved legal process that didn't make sense when we started as a small family project.