The basics of "Doing the Ironman for charity"
This seems like the right place to post this, let me know if it would be better elsewhere.
I finally decided to do this big Ironman things and I figured I'd use it as an opportunity to help raise money for a charitable service in our area that has helped my kids tremendously - the Masonic Learning Centers for Children. They teach dyslexic children to read using a special method developed just for dyslexics. No charge and no ties to the Masons required (or even asked).
The problem is, I have vitually no idea what it means to do this. Questions like these come to mind:
- How do I collect money?
- Can I take credit cards, checks, and or cash?
- What are the rules (IRS)?
- Can any of it be used to pay expenses for advertising/awareness, training, or race day costs? (got this idea from Team in Training)
- How do I get tax forms/receipts to donors?
- and so on...
And I'm sure I don't even know the questions I should really be asking.
Can anyone give me a few pointers how to get started down this road? Maybe there's a thread here or other external source that would be good. I've done searches, but no luck as yet.
Thanks everyone.
BTW: the logo for this charity is a big teddy bear (the reward to the kids that finish the program), so to raise awareness during training and on race day I'll no doubt be trying to look my manliest with a giant teddy bear plastered to my shirt 
Comments
@Brad - Thanks, I'll look into Kintera. I wonder what they will do to replace Janus, if anything. I've seen some other comments here too wondering the same thing.
In the meantime, the folks at the Masonic center are trying to figure things out, but I think may be over their heads so I'm trying to do what I can to help. Right now I'd be happy if they could just figure out paypal or some other easy online payment acceptance system.