Grace Pennington GFM

[VVV]

We haven't discussed the eldest Pennington daughter very much--she is the "good" daughter who left home via the approved route of first nannying for a family member and then getting married. She writes self-published Christian fantasy novels (ebooks only as far as I know), and until recently she had a website for them. Apparently when her family's server was hacked, she lost her website, and is now trying to raise enough money to rebuild the website. Here's the link: https://www.gofundme.com/relaunch-firmament-series-website

What kind of adult thinks it's OK to have begging be the default option? I have donated to GFMs for funeral expenses when a death was unexpected, and for catastrophic medical expenses. But $400 for a website? Why doesn't she just get a job and save the money herself? Or, if she and her husband really object to her working outside the home, why don't they live on a shoestring until they have saved up the $400? Where is the shame? I'd be mortified to be asking strangers for money for an expense that was entirely my own responsibility.

[purjolok84]

Why do fundie Christians go on and on about the awesomeness of the one person/man only earning structure, but the moment things go pear shaped, suddenly one man's meagre earnings is just not enough? If the family has to resort to online panhandling every time there's a problem then ... well, if it were me I'd be reviewing my life goals.

Aren't there free options that she could choose from?

[quiversR4hunting]

I don't understand it either.

I have family and friends with handicap children that have done fundraisers for medical expenses or equipment. I understand that because they have so many expenses just on all the doctor visits trying to get your kid a handicap bike or hoyer lift is difficult on top up everything else. I also understand when people use GFM for natural disasters. Big floods went through an area a few hours away from me. Nobody has flood insurance because nobody can get it but people lost everything. One family had the basement walls cave in so now they have a mortgage on a house that needs to be demolished. How do they get money to build new and pay the old mortgage? It's insane.

But $400 for a website just because you are the Right Kind of Christian (tm)? no way. Same with the people that want a GFM for a new pet or vacation or praycation.

[Lurky]

How do you even need $400 for a website anyway?  I set up a new project recently, and it cost me around $35 for the yearly Wordpress sub + domain name, and anything that's not intuitive to work out when setting it up, I just googled "how do I...?".  I don't understand why she needs a designer to build her something, especially if cash is tight - and as a SAHW, she's got more time than most to work it out.

Ugh, Fundies and their grifting...

[littlemommy]

I bet she and her husband were completely certain that the money would just pour in for such a Godly endeavor. Maybe even more money will come in than $400, and they can do EVEN MORE GODLY WORK OMFG!

[JermajestyDuggar]

What is she going to do when she gets pregnant? Will she start a GFM for medical expenses? 

[Lurky]

I was wondering if it could be SOTDRT fail that she can't work out how to make a simple Wordpress site (free, if you don't mind wordpress.com in the title) - but then the whole Penington Post stuff shows the parents are basically website-literate, and her sisters were able to work the web out....

Me, I'd stick some of my stories up on a basic, free wordpress, and then start my GFM, so people could read them and see what they were funding.   I'm raising my eyebrows that she's not offering reward tiers, because that's the standard crowd-funding approach...

[Koala]

Yeah, she's a grown adult, so she can get a job.  Next.

[divadivine]

It's a generational thing. Millennials set up crowdsourcing campaigns for everything. 

[VVV]

33 minutes ago, divadivine said:

It's a generational thing. Millennials set up crowdsourcing campaigns for everything. 

As the mother of three millennials, I'd be absolutely furious if I caught them begging for money from strangers on the internet for anything less than a medical catastrophe. That's not how we've raised them.

[Pianokeeper]

33 minutes ago, divadivine said:

It's a generational thing. Millennials set up crowdsourcing campaigns for everything. 

Do you have sources for this?  I am highly skeptical of this blanket statement.  A quick Google certainly reveals Millennials' disproportionate tendency to GIVE to crowdsourcing/crowdfunding, but it's harder to find easily accessible data on the demographics of the recipients.

[closetcagebaby]

41 minutes ago, divadivine said:

It's a generational thing. Millennials set up crowdsourcing campaigns for everything. 

I don't know where you're getting this information from, but I'm pretty skeptical. I'm so tired of the misinformation about my generation's entitlement when we're working our asses off for little payoff.

15 hours ago, purjolok84 said:

pear shaped

Love that you used this phrase! I just heard it (well, read it) for the first time in a romance novel that I'm reading.

[divadivine]

Just now, Pianokeeper said:

Do you have sources for this?  I am highly skeptical of this blanket statement.  A quick Google certainly reveals Millennials' disproportionate tendency to GIVE to crowdsourcing/crowdfunding, but it's harder to find easily accessible data on the demographics of the recipients.

My source.... I work with college students and have been doing so for a few years. They crowdsource for things all the time. Mind you, most of the things our students crowdsource for involve service projects (for supplies),  medical bills for people they know, sometimes money to attend a leadership camp, etc. Typically it's not money for them, but they are quick to get campaigns started.

They love to crowdsource on their birthdays and have the money go to one of our organization's Charitable partners. Last year one of our students turned 21. In lieu of gifts, she asked people to give money to her crowdsource campaign called Shots for Shots. You donated the money you would spend to buy her a shot of alcohol to buy a vaccination (shot) for a Mother to prevent a disease that kills infants.  

A few years ago there was a natural disaster (can't remember where...) that happened over a weekend. By Monday morning our student board had an entire crowdsource campaign written up and they were ready to launch it. They forgot we have a foundation, with a full staff of trained individuals, who can accept monetary gifts earmarked by the donors. Our foundation can get the money where it's needed fairly quickly without charging fees and it's tax deductible. 

We were brainstorming ideas one day with a group of 30 students. We were talking about what items they would need for a service project and the costs. Work gloves came up and they said "Why would you buy work gloves when someone will donate them to you? We can just start a GFM to buy all of our supplies. We can use some of our budget to buy pizza for lunch." 

 

[AlwaysExcited]

@divadivine I think what you're describing is very different than what Grace is doing. She is not asking for someone else, not doing any charity or anything like that. She just wants other people to pay for her hobby.  

[lawlifelgbt]

1 hour ago, VVV said:

As the mother of three millennials, I'd be absolutely furious if I caught them begging for money from strangers on the internet for anything less than a medical catastrophe. That's not how we've raised them.

I'm a Millenial, and I have begged for non-catastrophes before- but usually food or small amounts. Before I passed the bar exam, it was sometimes hard for my wife and I to eat enough or get anything we enjoyed after a hard day, since I wasn't getting hired for anything due to my law degree, but without a license yet, couldn't practice. You can bet that when we couldn't afford tampons and were eating less so as to feed our cats, I did ask online. The time I passed the bar exam, I had literally no grocery money nor sandwich stuff left the day before; and I knew I would fail it if I was that hungry!

 

I think it's the GFM and the $400 for a WEBSITE that bugs me. But this Millenial sometimes got $40 here and there, or pizza or pet food, via Millenial begging. So I think it's also usable when you are trying to meet your basic needs but can't even though you are trying hard.

[divadivine]

1 hour ago, AlwaysExcited said:

@divadivine I think what you're describing is very different than what Grace is doing. She is not asking for someone else, not doing any charity or anything like that. She just wants other people to pay for her hobby.  

Truth.... but I will say our students are amazingly successful at crowdsourcing. The younger generations are very convincing. I think it's due to the group work many of them did in elementary, middle, and high school. They know how to get people involved.

Our students will say "We don't have the cash to donate, but we can convince the people who do have the cash to make donations." It's really not a bad thing- it's a good skill to have, especially because a lot of our students want to go into the non-profit sector after graduation. They're really great at talking to people. They connect with people and get the word out via social media platforms. They're convincing and they don't get discouraged if someone does say no. They just keep making connections with other people. 

I think Grace just wants a fancy website. Our students would use Weebly/Wordpress/other plug and go platforms and have their graphic design friends and their computer science friends help them with graphics and coding to make the free/or less expensive version more robust.  Or they would tell a web designer friend "I can do graphic design/take photographs/edit text for your other websites if you will help me build my site." Very quid pro quo. 

[Glasgowghirl]

I have seen crowd funding being used for house building projects on TV before, one example was a man turning an old barge that was in ruin into a house boat when he ran into financial difficulty and needed help he turned to crowd funding but he showed gratitude to his backers and invited them to the launch. He also worked and had used up all the money the bank had lent him.

This case is a different story, she has made no attempts to save money.  Have a garage sale or eBay old stuff and use it to start the savings then she could try save money on groceries and other expenses. Savings add up quickly. She would probably have it in a few weeks. Crowd funding should only be as a last resort. Some projects I'd gladly support, this is not one of them.

 

[VVV]

2 hours ago, Glasgowghirl said:

This case is a different story, she has made no attempts to save money.  Have a garage sale or eBay old stuff and use it to start the savings then she could try save money on groceries and other expenses. Savings add up quickly. She would probably have it in a few weeks. Crowd funding should only be as a last resort. Some projects I'd gladly support, this is not one of them.

Or, as has been mentioned, she could get a job.

I have no patience with intelligent, able-bodied adults with few family responsibilities, who refuse to get off their butts and at least try to get a job. Heck, if her "books" were really successful, she'd have enough money coming in to pay for a fancy website. She calls herself a writer but what she really is is a hobbyist and a grifter.