Charity carwash for a local Church. Running into legal problems?

89gt-stanger · 07-24-09, 10:50

I would like to contact my local church about running a charity carwash at the church. I am not a registered business with the city or anything. Would I be allowed to do this and not run into legal trouble? I was thinking about donating 75% of the proceeds. Does this sound reasonable? I think this is a good way of giving back to my community.

Cheers,
Dylan

EDIT: To know how many people are going to come out, when I contact them, I am going to see if they can plan it a week or two in advance, and let me know how many cars I should expect. (I'll bring my brother to help also.) Do yall think that if there are a lot of cars, I could spread it out over 3 days?

Thanks.

JohnKleven · 07-24-09, 11:18

I personally would give 100% of the proceeds to charity. It's not like you're going to make a lot of money that day, but you will certainly put a good name to your company.

John

bert31 · 07-24-09, 11:54

Also, if you do plan on keeping a portion of the money, you will need to make that clear to each and every customer. If they assume all the money is going to the church and find out afterwards some of it went into your pocket, you could be really ruin your reputation.

If you really want to do this, I would take John Kleven's advice and donate all of money to the church but use this as a way to advertise yourself and build goodwill.

89gt-stanger · 07-24-09, 12:05

Yeah, yall are right, all will go to the charity. Will I have problems handing out business cards? Since my town has around 35,000 people, do you think I should contact the local newspaper for a possible front page story? This would be great, I think.

Setec Astronomy · 07-24-09, 05:18

Let's see, unlicensed detailer in a front page story, handing out business cards, I'm sure with his contact info mentioned in the article. Nah, I don't think that will draw any attention from the authorities.

AeroCleanse · 07-24-09, 05:48

I think you could hook up with the church, have them run it but you be the expert. So you could buy the right products for them and get reimbursed for it. You could also teach the volunteers the correct way to wash cars.

In order to avoid other issues for water reclamation, use ONR,

I think the best you could do on the money front is to get your expenses repaid. Then offer your time as your own donation.

Danase · 07-25-09, 05:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnKleven

I personally would give 100% of the proceeds to charity. It's not like you're going to make a lot of money that day, but you will certainly put a good name to your company.

John

I agree. If you're doing it for charity then do it for charity. I think it's kind of shady to say it's for charity and then take some of it for yourself.

odgaard · 07-25-09, 08:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Setec Astronomy

Let's see, unlicensed detailer in a front page story, handing out business cards, I'm sure with his contact info mentioned in the article. Nah, I don't think that will draw any attention from the authorities.

yeah my thought exactly

Less · 07-27-09, 10:05

I'm not a legal expert, and I don't know what the rules are in your town, but I'm not sure I see a problem with your business being unregistered. You're an individual, offering a service, in exchange for compensation. As long as you claim the income and pay your taxes, I don't see a problem. Now, it gets dicey if you actually act like a business. You have a logo, name, fixed location, seperate assets, etc.

Anyway, I'm wondering why you would do this in the first place. In a town of 35,000 (which isn't that small), do you really think that a charity car wash would be 'front page' news? Even if it is, who the hell reads the paper anyway?

If you're looking for a forum to hand out business cards or advertisements, you're probably looking in the wrong place. Have you ever been to a charity car wash? Most of the time it's a team of 14 year olds using one bucket and three 99cent sponges to wash fifty cars. Do you really think that the people that patronize those things actually give a sh-t about their cars? Do you really expect some of them to turn around and pay you several hundred dollars for a real detail?

Forgive me for saying this, but it really sounds to me like you are more interested in the cheap/free advertising aspect of this rather than the actual charity. Everything you've mentioned so far (keeping 25%, newspaper stories, business cards, etc.) adds an element of 'sleaze' to what would otherwise be a genuine charitable act.

If you want to give your time to charity, do it. If not, don't. That's it.