I recently found a 1966 4-door Chevy Impala online for about $2,000. It's not a 67, but it still looks like the car from Supernatural, and I really, really want it. I can't afford it right now, and my friends are saying I should set up a GoFundMe to raise money for the car. I'd love to, but what would investors get out of it? Even if I got the car, it would take me a minimum of 2 years to rebuild it (between saving up for parts and only working on my days off). Has anyone else here ever set up a GoFundMe or similar fundraising page to get a project car? Is it ethical?
STM317
SuperDork
7/25/18 7:44 a.m.
deannathegeek said:
Has anyone else here ever set up a GoFundMe or similar fundraising page to get a project car? Is it ethical?
This comes up every once in awhile, and most people scoff at the idea. In my opinion, it's not ok to ask others for money so that you can buy yourself something that amounts to a luxury item. It's no different than asking for money to buy a $2000 watch, or take a $2000 vacation.You might get some takers, but that's not what GoFundMe should be used for in my opinion.
STM317 said:
deannathegeek said:
Has anyone else here ever set up a GoFundMe or similar fundraising page to get a project car? Is it ethical?
This comes up every once in awhile, and most people scoff at the idea. In my opinion, it's not ok to ask others for money so that you can buy yourself something that amounts to a luxury item. It's no different than asking for money to buy a $2000 watch, or take a $2000 vacation.You might get some takers, but that's not what GoFundMe should be used for in my opinion.
That's what I was thinking, too. I mean, one of my friends said if I videoed and blogged the entire process it would be like a learning/teaching thing for others, and my friends from my #SPNFTW group said if the car became the mascot for our group they'd all be happy to pitch in for it, but I feel weird asking for money for something that's essentially just for myself. I just didn't know if anyone else had done anything similar, or had any other good ideas for fundraising for something like this. I really want to get the car, but I want to do it the right way.
To answer your questions:
What do the investors get out of it? Nothing.
Has anyone done it? Yes, at least one or two people have tried it. It did NOT go well...
Is it ethical? IMO, not at all.
Hope I don't come across as a jerk, but this is something that peeves me a little bit, and you certainly don't seem terribly comfortable with the idea yourself. Most of us struggle to afford the projects we have to some extent or another, so why should anyone expect a handout? Project cars are not charitable causes.
If money is tight and you're looking for an ambitious project to push your skills, check out some of the Challenge builds on here and the lengths GRMers will go to to stick to the budget. You will not find better examples of low dollar/high awesomeness builds anywhere.
In reply to John Welsh :
Thanks for the links! It's good to get this kind of info on what others think about it.
After reading some of the stuff in the links John Welsh posted, I got to thinking. What if I did do the car for charity? I mean, anyone who is part of or knows anything about the Supernatural fandom knows that all the actors are huge on charity work, and often do their own charity fundraisers (I own quite a few of their charity T-shirts, and recently bought Richard Speight Jr's Big Bag of Dicks to feed the homeless). What if I did a GoFundMe to get the car, spent my own money to rebuild it, then auctioned it off for one of the charities that the cast supports? Jared Padalecki does #AlwaysKeepFighting to support mental health, Jensen takes on a lot of charity work local to Austin, and Misha supports everything from getting young people registered to vote to helping victims of domestic violence to preserving natural lands. Personally, I would support a veterans group, being a veteran myself and having a family history of serving in the military. It feels like the best of all worlds-getting to rebuild my dream car, honing my skills, and helping others. Thoughts?
STM317
SuperDork
7/25/18 8:35 a.m.
I understand that you're fairly new to wrenching, as well as this site, so please don't take this the wrong way. I'm not trying to pass judgement on you or talk you out of this great hobby but I don't see a charity build working out well at this point. Consider this tough love or whatever but if you don't have the budget or skills to tackle this job right now, at what point would the car be done? If/When that time comes, would it be done well enough to generate enough @ auction to justify the purchase? Not sure about you, but for me learning usually comes as the result of screwing stuff up. That takes time and costs money as you'll have to redo things.
If you or your financial backers actually want to support this charity, they'd probably be better off just donating to the charity straight away instead of letting GoFundMe take their cut, then waiting however many years until it's actually done while you go through multiple revisions. And that's hoping that it does eventually get completed, which is no guarantee. I don't know what the condition of the car is right now, or how extensive the work required will be but projects like this tend to stall out (I've got a 30 year old project sitting in my garage that I inherited from my father, with no start in sight).
All very good points STM317. I guess I'm just letting my imagination and excitement run away with me. I really should listen to my 16 year old, who is much more patient and rational than I am; he suggested waiting until he finishes high school in 2 years, and by that time I'd not only be more financially stable but could have the money saved up on my own. I'm just over-excited about the prospects of both doing the rebuild and the subsequent idea of doing charity work.
I could see a gofundme for a discrete stage of a charity project near completion(say for the final paint job), but not for the initial purchase of a car you want to learn wrenching on. As previously said, it's a pig in a poke. You don't have any idea what the car will need, and a safe bet on a car restoration is incurred costs along the way will be at least four to five times the initial purchase price. If you can't afford the project car, you almost certainly can't afford to fix it.
The only "right" way I can imagine is buying the car yourself. If you can't afford it now, you can't afford it once it's in your garage either.
The next step down the ethical slippery slope would be to find a good friend you can afford to lose, and going in together on the purchase of the project.
In reply to travellering :
Travellering, I have a friend wanting to help me out, but like you inferred, I'm not willing to lose her. I think I'm gonna stick with my son's advice at this point, no matter how itchy I'm getting under my skin.
I don't see anything ethical or unethical about a GoFundMe page. If the appeal seems lame or exploitive or just plain nuts, it will die on its own. I saw one recently started by a woman who was attempting to raise money for a car. The appeal is going nowhere because the rest of humanity knows if you don't have enough money to buy a car, you don't have enough money to buy car insurance. Or upkeep. Or legal paperwork. If anyone in the world thinks it's a good idea and donates, well we all know about fools and money. So these things tend to be self-limiting and don't carry any moral weight one way or the other. Ultimately, Deanna, a GoFundMe page is probably a waste of your time.
Appeals that attempt to defraud the public are a different thing altogether but can result in a prosecutable crime so there's that.
ASK THE ACTORS IF THEY WILL DONATE. The Fiero club here in Georgia did this for the wounded warrior project. car showed up in a scrap yard , left a bad taste. So things like that happen a lot when you get free stuff, No value to the recipiant
If you really wanted it to be ethical and wanted the car to be funded you'd contact a local trade school, high school with a shop program or community college about if they'd be interested in a project for students.
Then you'd setup the GoFundMe to purchase said project, the students learn on said vehicle, finish it, then you sell said vehicle for the amount raised by the GoFundMe donators and give the remaining profits to the learning institution that provided the labor and utilize the funds (now washed) to purchase your own project.
That I wouldn't take issue with.
If you can't really afford it right now why don't you just donate to me so I can do it.
Why would I want to fund someone else's fun? There are very few things I actually like on GoFundMe.
I am in the camp of not approving of using go fund me for this kind of thing. If the car really is that special go to your local credit union and get a unsecured loan with a 12 month pay back period. That way you have some skin in the game and in the end you answer to no one with respect to the car project.
If you can't even afford the purchase price, you can't afford to fix and own the car anyway.
I can’t believe I’m about to suggest this, but if in some way you could purchase the car, you can do a YouTube video blog and ask for donations to fix up the car. As long as you stay current and have content for people to watch, people will usually donate money.
There are so many people that get sponsorship money and donations from YouTube it’s sickening. The thing is too, that some of the content is lame as hell and I can’t understand the donations.
Theres a guy who tests different oils on small lawn mower engines until they blow up and people donate money for new motors.
Theres another guy who plays video games creates really good videos and sells merch, people donate and sponsor him, so much that making YouTube Videos is his only job.
There a dude that all he does is shows off new RVs and test drives new trucks and gives his opinion and somehow gets donation money that he recently started selling Yeti tumblers with his YouTube logo on it which is basically his own 2017 Ford F450. He has a sponsorship from Ranch Hand Bumpers.
I think that’s somewhat a better route than asking people for money to buy a car through GoFundMe.
GTXVette said:
ASK THE ACTORS IF THEY WILL DONATE. The Fiero club here in Georgia did this for the wounded warrior project. car showed up in a scrap yard , left a bad taste. So things like that happen a lot when you get free stuff, No value to the recipiant
now that is a really bad good accident joke.
sends the wrong message on all sorts of levels...
In reply to SyntheticBlinkerFluid :
That's not a bad idea, but I think at the moment I'm gonna stick with my son's advice of waiting until I can afford the car myself (after I clean up my personal finances). I planned on YouTubing it anyways, so maybe that avenue might be an option for getting the parts & stuff I need to restore it.
