Charity Project Planning

[robin]

A thread makes more sense at this point as I am sure alot of members have ideas and would like to contribute!

 

 

[robin]

10 hours ago, CupidsBow said:

It would be WAY better if Yuzu fans were to take any Kpop birthday-event trend they dont get gifts and don't rent ad spaces but instead raise money for a charity and donate in his name. That and sponsoring chunks of land for forest restoration are probably the best birthday projects i see happening.

 

10 hours ago, kaerb said:

Yeah, I agree with that -- I think sending donations to places or causes he cares about (eg. Ice Rink Sendai, skating help for disadvantaged kids, funding asthma research or something) would be great as a future initiative. 

 

10 hours ago, Xen said:

Actually, I thought of this when you mentioned charity projects:

--Since Yuzu always wanted to help the sport along, help other skaters and athletes, I was thinking maybe we can setup a charity foundation in his honor. It's not necessarily for skaters who train at Sendai, but possibly for skaters in the Miyagi region. And said fund can help cover some of the competition fees, equipment fees etc that are incurred in the course of training. 

-Now of course, this is super ambitious, and I'm not sure if we have anyone in our fandom who knows how said foundations work in either US, Canada, Europe, China or even Japan. But possibly a trust or an NGO basis. And then there are issues how taxes work. But I think this is a type of foundation/trust that would be a terrific contribution on his behalf to the skating world. 

- He already has something working since some of the money from his biographies are going to Ice Rink Sendai. The question is is it easy to hook up such an initiative with the existing fund for the ice rink? 

 

Edit: I don't think this will work as a birthday project. More like what happens when he decides to...that...project.

 

 

 

10 hours ago, CupidsBow said:

 

setting up something in his honor?? way too ambitious for a bunch of fans with no experience doing such a thing. gathering a decent amount of contributions to donate to an existing thing under his name is way easier to organised. whether it be the ice rink in sendai or something less specific. 

 

9 hours ago, Xen said:

Yeah, I know, it's super ambitious and probably too far flung. But if we do decide to donate something to ice rink sendai, is there a way for us to donate to them? The closest I can think of is say, if someone manages to get in contact with the publishers of his books and ask if there is a way to directly contribute to the fund instead. I don't think random envelopes flying to ice rink sendai filled with money is going to work. And if we donate to charities, well we need to figure out what charity to donate to. 

 

Is there still a fund ongoing for the rebuilding after 2011 Earthquake? I think that would be the closest equivalent. 

 

9 hours ago, CupidsBow said:

 

tbh the hardest part is scouting out a suitable and trustworthy charity. if there is an ongoing charity for the 2011 quake that would be a good one to go for, but pretty much any charity based there would be good. I imagine some of the japanese speakers/users of this site could help with finding a charity or contacting the sendai rink for information about giving donations.

 

(if people go with this (particularly mods and admins though it doesn't necessarily have to be them, it's just better to have a group of people involved so its harder for one person to run off with the money) it's good to have a target date to get things organised for. like birthdays, this one being way too close, or the end of the season as a celebration assuming he does well, key anniversary dates or him or for the site, things like that. Makes it easier to plan and promote. so if we say next birthday we'll try a charity project that's a year to pick the charity and work out the details haha)

 

9 hours ago, Xen said:

What about the publishers of Aoi no Honoo?  I'm assuming that any sales of the book will still have proceeds going to Ice Rink Sendai. Maybe they would know? 

 

Better to have a go fund me project etc that is fed directly to the ice rink or charity in question. Or at least an entity that is a neutral third party in this thing. But yes, I can get behind it. Now if only one of my fluent languages were japanese. 

 

5 hours ago, robin said:

Hm so we have actually thought about making a charity project and were toying with ideas but we postponed it to the off-season as we were busy.

 

I personally don't feel comfortable with promoting a specific charity and I wouldn't want to vouch for one. Local charities are the safest so we were thinking of doing something more loose. Just individual fans doing something charitable like making financial donations or donating blood or volunteering and then documenting it in some way that relates to Yuzu. This would also be more inclusive bc while not all fans have the means to donate they can still volunteer, probably. We would also avoid having to collect money and be responsible for it, something that would make me uncomfortable, as well. But this idea also has its flaws, like how can we document it in a cohesive and organized way? The message of the campaign might run danger of being ambiguous. And the project would depend on the motivation of the fans which is hard to predict especially with the message being ambiguous

 

 

Hope I didn't miss anything!

[robin]

17 minutes ago, Murieleirum said:

 

Thank you for taking the charity donations discussion to a separate chat. 

  Hide contents

Putting some thoughts under spoiler because I don't want to make the general thread gloomy.

 

I am sure there are many of us that cannot really afford to make any substantial donations to any charity.

Furthermore, I cringe when I read 'doing charity or voluntary work in his name and proving it in some way'. We are skating fans. We are not an organization of any kind. That sounds... wrong. If you want to do charity, go do it for your own. If you want to do voluntary work, go do it for your own. If you want to do nice things, I'm sure you don't need to be motivated by your love for Yuzuru. You should do them because you feel like it. I don't understand what 'being Yuzuru fans' has anything to do with making donations to charities, even if those have something to do with figure skating, because donating or doing voluntary work are very private things. 

 

In any case, this is just how I feel and I understand how different people might feel in a different way.

 

If my feelings are not shared by anyone else, and feel out of place, please ignore my message.

 

 

 

I think this is a discussion we can very well have here

 

I actually agree with you. But the point of doing charity as a fan project is more to divert the energy that fandoms have to something productive and useful and I guess if certain fans feel it's too private they don't have to actually participate in it. (That's also kind of why I prefer to leave the nature of the charity up to the individual, I am personally rather sceptical about charities.)

[Murieleirum]

12 minutes ago, robin said:

I actually agree with you. But the point of doing charity as a fan project is more to divert the energy that fandoms have to something productive and useful and I guess if certain fans feel it's too private they don't have to actually participate in it. (That's also kind of why I prefer to leave the nature of the charity up to the individual, I am personally rather sceptical about charities.)

 

Yep, same. _{(I have the Vatican in my city sssshhh)} 

[Aotoshiro]

Oh, I should have posted this part here...gotta delete it from the gen chat.

 

As for the charity talk, can we keep this as an alternative to buying out ads spaces, and keep the well-wishes projects as well? I remember my sister donating to the shelter, then offering the receipt of that donation as the equivalent of the flowers to her promotor (because she loved cats), but that was a replacement for wasting money on expensive bouquet that would wilt in a few days. I'm pretty sure the well wishes won't wilt this easily...or we could do crowdfunding for the projects, since I'm SURE printing out banner HAD TO cost quite a lot...same with the books, etc... This way, younger fans/fans who are struggling with gathering money for living/ fans that would otherwise have to chose between donating to the projects and buying the ticket to a competition could still participate in the birthday projects without feeling guilty about not donating/donating not enough. Same with charity-people not trusting/unable to do charity because of certain (health or other)conditions (blood donors cannot be anaemiac, and I am, for example) could still find a way to support the skater they wish to support^^

 

[Forcefield]

I think it's been established by the people here, and should always be emphasized, that this project is voluntary and for the interested in the wording for this project.

 

The project itself doesn't have to be big.

 

Spoiler

I'm big on doing hands-on voluntary work and it makes up for most of my volunteering experience, but sometimes it just doesn't work out.

 

I remember during 3.11 so many were volunteering to go to the disaster areas that some people had to come out and say money was what they actually needed most to help the people and reconstruction. Unfortunately people don't always trust charities. 

 

[¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

7 時間前, Murieleirumさんが言いました:

 

Thank you for taking the charity donations discussion to a separate chat. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Putting some thoughts under spoiler because I don't want to make the general thread gloomy.

 

I am sure there are many of us that cannot really afford to make any substantial donations to any charity.

Furthermore, I cringe when I read 'doing charity or voluntary work in his name and proving it in some way'. We are skating fans. We are not an organization of any kind. That sounds... wrong. If you want to do charity, go do it for your own. If you want to do voluntary work, go do it for your own. If you want to do nice things, I'm sure you don't need to be motivated by your love for Yuzuru. You should do them because you feel like it. I don't understand what 'being Yuzuru fans' has anything to do with making donations to charities, even if those have something to do with figure skating, because donating or doing voluntary work are very private things. 

 

In any case, this is just how I feel and I understand how different people might feel in a different way.

 

If my feelings are not shared by anyone else, and feel out of place, please ignore my message.

 

 

 

I dunno. Personally, I feel it's a great idea. There are many other charities that exists and the Great Tohoku Earthquake of 2011 isn't the only disaster. I like to think my heart is in the right place but I'm not saintly, altruistic or selfless enough to donate all the time in whatever form which means I'll only donate when I come across something that really strikes a chord within me. And sometimes, there are more of them than what I can afford to give so I have to make choices.

 

I made a couple of donations when the disaster first struck but seeing as I'm neither Japanese nor from the Tohoku region, I wouldn't be following it up with subsequent donations cos I'd be looking at other charities and I can only give so much. But if there's something to galvanize me, I'd start giving towards it again.

 

Hanyu is one such galvanizing factor for me. By now, it's less about Tohoku and more about Hanyu himself and how much his skating and the kind of choices he has made in life mean to me. The way Tohoku is so closely tied to him makes it a worthwhile channel to show my appreciation of him as both a skater/competitor and a person, because it is what helped shape him. This gesture would also help prove that his skating has a profound effect and that he wasn't wrong in choosing to continue to skate when he was at a crossroad, that he didn't abandon his hometown in its time of need but instead helped it, that his skating directly help brought change that would help his hometown, something that he felt it didn't do. It's also easier for those of us who find it easier to do something like this to show our appreciation than making him something from scratch (I dunno about others but me, I'm a lazy, talentless hack) and it does more good than simply buying him something to send to him.

 

Of course, Tohoku isn't the only channel for this and ultimately, it's down to what the people who are spearheading this project find doable. I was merely stating if I were to make any monetary contribution, the Tohoku one made in his name would be one that would convince me to perhaps use the money I've been saving up for something else towards it instead.

 

People reading this can feel free to judge me all they want, but this is the reality of this situation when it comes to me. I realize I may not live up to certain standards but I don't feel it makes me any less sincere for it.

 

It doesn't have to be loud nor does it ever have to get back to him. A quiet donation made by a group of people who got together to do this for him and by extension, those he cares about, because they feel inspired to is a beautifully meaningful gesture in and of itself. If you have private reservations and are more comfortable doing it separately on your own, that is fair, but I'm sorry if there are those of you whose view is too clouded by judgment to see the beauty behind the gesture for what it is.

 

Even if Tohoku has my vote and my pledge to donate is for this channel only, whatever the people who are organizing this decide to go with, they would still have my wholehearted support.

[SparkleSalad]

23 minutes ago, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

 

I dunno. Personally, I feel it's a great idea. There are many other charities that exists and the Great Tohoku Earthquake of 2011 isn't the only disaster. I like to think my heart is in the right place but I'm not saintly, altruistic or selfless enough to donate all the time which means I'll only donate when I come across something that really strikes a chord within me. And sometimes, there are more of them than what I can afford to give so I have to make choices.

 

I made a couple of donations when the disaster first struck but seeing as I'm neither Japanese nor from the Tohoku region, I wouldn't be following it up with subsequent donations cos I'd be looking at other charities and I can only give so much. But if there's something to galvanize me, I'd start giving towards it again.

 

Hanyu is one such galvanizing factor for me. By now, it's less about Tohoku and more about Hanyu himself and how much his skating and the kind of choices he has made in life mean to me. The way Tohoku is so closely tied to him makes it a worthwhile channel to show my appreciation of him as both a skater/competitor and a person, because it is what helped shape him. It also proves that his skating has a profound effect and that he wasn't wrong in choosing to continue to skate when he was at a crossroads, that he didn't abandon his hometown in its time of need but instead helped it, that his skating directly help brought change that would help his hometown, something that he felt it didn't do. It's also easier for those of us who find it easier to do something like this to show our appreciation than of making him something for scratch (I dunno about others but me, I'm a lazy, talentless hack) and it does more good than simply buying him something to send to him.

 

Of course, Tohoku isn't the only channel for this and ultimately, it's down to what the people who are spearheading this project find doable. I was merely stating if I were to make any monetary contribution, the Tohoku one made in his name would be one that would convince me to perhaps use the money I've been saving up for something else towards it instead.

 

Feel free to judge me, but this is the reality of this situation when it comes to me. I realize I may not live up to certain standards but I don't feel it makes me any less sincere for it.

 

I see nothing wrong with it. In fact, I think it's a wonderful idea! This isn't something to make heartless, less than generous people finally empty their pockets but an alternative to a gift they may have spent money on anyway. It's not an alternative to giving to other charities at other times of the year. Even if this is the starting point for someone to donate, that's a wonderful thing, too! Those who benefit aren't going to cross-examine anyone over their intentions. Isn't this basically a fundraising event? Should we criticise people for only donating to a cause when they, say, attend a dinner or bid on a silent auction? I think it's a really lovely gesture, not to mention it would save the Hanyu household from accumulating anymore clutter.  If someone were to ever make a donation to a cause I was passionate about in my name, I'd be deeply touched.  I can't say I will be in with whatever is decided upon should this become a group donation but I would be happy to donate separately to a charity that I feel comfortable supporting.

[CupidsBow]

10 hours ago, Aotoshiro said:

Oh, I should have posted this part here...gotta delete it from the gen chat.

 

As for the charity talk, can we keep this as an alternative to buying out ads spaces, and keep the well-wishes projects as well? I remember my sister donating to the shelter, then offering the receipt of that donation as the equivalent of the flowers to her promotor (because she loved cats), but that was a replacement for wasting money on expensive bouquet that would wilt in a few days. I'm pretty sure the well wishes won't wilt this easily...or we could do crowdfunding for the projects, since I'm SURE printing out banner HAD TO cost quite a lot...same with the books, etc... This way, younger fans/fans who are struggling with gathering money for living/ fans that would otherwise have to chose between donating to the projects and buying the ticket to a competition could still participate in the birthday projects without feeling guilty about not donating/donating not enough. Same with charity-people not trusting/unable to do charity because of certain (health or other)conditions (blood donors cannot be anaemiac, and I am, for example) could still find a way to support the skater they wish to support^^

 

 

The way I've always been involved in it being done was as a kind of alternative to a gift rather than an alternative for projects centered around supportive messages. Typically we would do a support-message based project alongside for people who wanted to support the project but couldn't donate, while people who maybe didn't want to send us their photos/artwork/messages would just donate, and some would do both. example one year we chose a charity that gave cleft-palette surgery to children living in countries where the procedure might be expensive. We raised maybe one or two thousand dollars, but alongside the receipt to the charity and info on what the charity did we had artwork depicting the idol as a superhero giving children smiles (his smile is his best feature lol). It shouldn't be anyone feels pressured at all to donating to or feel bad about not having a lot to spare since even a small donation makes a difference. we broke down what the money raised would get us so like I think the $1000 gave one child a full surgery and any extra went toward providing medical materials to a hospital. Yuzu has way more fans than my old idol lol it's just that gifts tend to either not be used/it's really hard to get a good gift for a person you do not know and adspaces are so expensive. It's a better use of money that, in kpop at least, fans are throwing towards similar things anyway.

[sweetwater]

I would wait until he starts something by himself and lets us know what we can do to support it.

 

I don’t think he is the one who would feel comfortable when his name is used by someone without his agreement, even if it were to help someone under his name. He has participated in many projects, (including both commercial ones and non-commercial ones) and in many cases, we can clearly see that he did so because he personally felt that he could relate to it, or he could take responsibility for it. In which project he just let them use his name without doing anything by himself?

 

I don’t know much about K-pop culture, so I’m not sure how such gifts from fans are taken by the idols they are following, but I don’t feel right to do the same thing using his name.

[SparkleSalad]

7 minutes ago, sweetwater said:

I would wait until he starts something by himself and lets us know what we can do to support it.

 

I don’t think he is the one who would feel comfortable when his name is used by someone without his agreement, even if it were to help someone under his name. He has participated in many projects, (including both commercial ones and non-commercial ones) and in many cases, we can clearly see that he did so because he personally felt that he could relate to it, or he could take responsibility for it. In which project he just let them use his name without doing anything by himself?

 

I don’t know much about K-pop culture, so I’m not sure how such gifts from fans are taken by the idols they are following, but I don’t feel right to do the same thing using his name.

 

Fair point. I didn't consider his name might be attached to the donations themselves but I've never been involved in anything like that before so maybe that's part of it. 

[CupidsBow]

1 hour ago, sweetwater said:

I would wait until he starts something by himself and lets us know what we can do to support it.

 

I don’t think he is the one who would feel comfortable when his name is used by someone without his agreement, even if it were to help someone under his name. He has participated in many projects, (including both commercial ones and non-commercial ones) and in many cases, we can clearly see that he did so because he personally felt that he could relate to it, or he could take responsibility for it. In which project he just let them use his name without doing anything by himself?

 

I don’t know much about K-pop culture, so I’m not sure how such gifts from fans are taken by the idols they are following, but I don’t feel right to do the same thing using his name.

 

Or if not in his name then by under just 'Yuzuru Hanyu Fans'. tbh when in kpop it's done using the idol's name or under 'X person's fans' it's at least partially to help raise the image of the idol. like another thing that's done a lot of donating rice either to the idol so they can decide where to distribute it or to food banks/churches/soup kitchens in a given area. If attaching his name makes people feel so uncomfortable it could at least be donated anonymously but unofficially made apparent that was the inspiration to raise money and donate you know via the social media promotion we'd need to do for such a thing.

[¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

4 時間前, sweetwaterさんが言いました:

I would wait until he starts something by himself and lets us know what we can do to support it.

 

I don’t think he is the one who would feel comfortable when his name is used by someone without his agreement, even if it were to help someone under his name. He has participated in many projects, (including both commercial ones and non-commercial ones) and in many cases, we can clearly see that he did so because he personally felt that he could relate to it, or he could take responsibility for it. In which project he just let them use his name without doing anything by himself?

 

I don’t know much about K-pop culture, so I’m not sure how such gifts from fans are taken by the idols they are following, but I don’t feel right to do the same thing using his name.

 

3 時間前, CupidsBowさんが言いました:

 

Or if not in his name then by under just 'Yuzuru Hanyu Fans'. 

 

I guess "in his name" wouldn't be accurate, if I were to scrutinize it. It's just when it was mentioned in the initial idea throwout over in the other thread,  the bolded bit is the idea I got. Like, "Hi, <insert charity organization here>, here's some money a bunch of us Hanyu fans from all over the world scraped together and we'd like to use it to help the people of Tohoku." That's it. No fuss. No fanfare. His name is only mentioned to identify us as a group and how we came together. And the people of Tohoku can continue being proud of their prodigal son. I don't mean it has to be a huge unofficially official drive, where we go around asking for donation using his name. That I can see a pretty big problem with. But a small private one among forum members, I don't see a problem with at all. I sincerely do not see anything negative in this or have any hangups over it the way some of you here seem to have. It's sensible, it's in no way intrusive and it's a form of paying forward while allowing people to feel a quiet pride in their homegrown talent.

 

No problem if it doesn't happen. But if it does, I'll be happy to donate. That's all i'm saying. That said, out of all the other charity ideas tossed about, this one is the only one I feel comfortable and a sense of personal justification in contributing towards via a fan project, because it's both a humanitarian cause and closely related to Hanyu. It's also the only one where I feel the message is less, "We love you, Yuzuruuuuu!", and more, "Thank you, Yuzuru Hanyu."

 

But I consider all charity work as good work so if you all decide to go ahead with the project but choose a different channel, like I said earlier, I'll still support it.

[Xen]

4 hours ago, sweetwater said:

I would wait until he starts something by himself and lets us know what we can do to support it.

 

I don’t think he is the one who would feel comfortable when his name is used by someone without his agreement, even if it were to help someone under his name. He has participated in many projects, (including both commercial ones and non-commercial ones) and in many cases, we can clearly see that he did so because he personally felt that he could relate to it, or he could take responsibility for it. In which project he just let them use his name without doing anything by himself?

 

I don’t know much about K-pop culture, so I’m not sure how such gifts from fans are taken by the idols they are following, but I don’t feel right to do the same thing using his name.

Hi guys, as one of the guys who has probably more ambition than time or abilities here, I think the general idea is probably something that robin already mentioned. 

1) That this is a side project rather than a main project-because there is the voluntary versus forced issue that @Murieleirum mentioned. 

2) I think it's also more important that the charities involved get a continuous fund to work with rather than a one time slush money- anyone with some background in project management can tell you that budgeting for a 4-5 year project is a nightmare and guess work at best. 

 

I think something similar to what @¯\_(ツ)_/¯ mentioned would be best. 

In so far as what we do as planet hanyu forum, I think our role is more of a platform so to speak. Just personally, I'm located in China, I cannot open facebook, twitter, instagram, blogspot or even tumblr without hopping on a VPN. But I can open this forum without using a VPN. We have a distinct advantage there, in that we are essentially a platform or a bridge that is capable of working across countries. 

 

Now, in my free time, I did some work digging into SendAid. From what they've posted on their tumblr and facebook, it seems like the latest postings was around 2016 (September or July I think). And was the Etsy shop closed too?  But what their tumblr page does do is list a bunch of charities and organizations that are still involved in collecting donations for the Tohoku relief efforts (such as Japan society in the US).  I also went ahead and browsed around some of the donation portals and don't remember which one, but one listed that they are still about 151K short of their target. Considering that nuclear power plants are involved, I think ultimately the decontamination efforts and rebuilding will take longer than expected, and probably more than what the Japanese government initially forecasted as the cost. 

 

So my suggestion is:

Perhaps the best way is to list the various organizations that are able to help on-ground relief or manage donations? Such as Japan Society, such as the Red Cross in Japan. This way our forum is not directly involved with the money side of things. And no one would be forced to donate. We simply serve as a bridge, especially since I think right now we're possibly one of the more known Hanyu fan forums.  This also ensures that in some way, people would be able to continuously donate-so the fund for the relief effort doesn't dry up as the incident fades in people's memories. 

 

Serving as a bridge, a permanent one, one that people are aware of, would be helpful.

[¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

Ha

12 分, Xenさんが言いました:

Serving as a bridge, a permanent one, one that people are aware of, would be helpful.

 

That's fine, if that's what is realistically doable. Though I'm not sure I'll be galvanized enough to take action because I do already know which channels I can go through to make donations towards the Tohoku earthquake relief fund so if I wanted to do it I might as well just do it through these channels like I did twice before. Which I may at some point, but likely not right now.