TOPIC: True Dungeon Teams Up with Worldbuilders

If they send out what TD provided for supporting the endeaver then shipping cost are higher due to not combining into single packages for folks.

I got a 10 pack in the mail from World Builders yesterday. No Honeycomb like I expected to get.

Is it worth making a Google Sheet to track what people are recieving?

It couldn't hurt, as long as everyone realizes that not everyone will and contribute to it so the data will be partial. But some data is better than no data.

We can anonymous-ize the data. We also probably want contribution amount to cross reference that.

Status on honeycomb and key token receipt for donations and not prizes is all I am interested in data wise. So far none have been reported.

Rob F wrote: Based on what I'm seeing in this thread I'm questioning whether or not I'll ever participate in something from WB again. Not being notified of a package shipping, not being notified if you were one of the prize winners. Not being notified of anything really, and then people receiving items that were not even close to what was originally published/described. It all just seems very sloppy. And if this is sloppy it makes me question how the organization is run and what percentage of my dollars are actually going to programs vs. expenses.

Much of that information is publicly available:

www.open990.org/org/900618018/worldbuilders-inc/

It's a bit hard to interpret that data though, because I believe their donations in their big fundraisers for Heifer are passthrough and don't show up on this filing.

It seems to me Worldbuilders takes in and spends around $900,000 a year to keep their organization afloat, and uses that platform to raise funds for their partner charities (typically ~$1,000,000 or so per year based on press releases).

The most questionable expense is in Schedule L, Part IV: Business Transactions Involving Interested Persons: $79,200 in rent to "Elodin Holdings LLC" which is owned by "The President of Wordlbuilders Inc." (also known as Pat Rothfuss). Pat charged his charity $79,200 a year in rent in the fiscal year ending in 2019.

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Rob F wrote: Based on what I'm seeing in this thread I'm questioning whether or not I'll ever participate in something from WB again. Not being notified of a package shipping, not being notified if you were one of the prize winners. Not being notified of anything really, and then people receiving items that were not even close to what was originally published/described. It all just seems very sloppy. And if this is sloppy it makes me question how the organization is run and what percentage of my dollars are actually going to programs vs. expenses.

Much of that information is publicly available:

www.open990.org/org/900618018/worldbuilders-inc/

It's a bit hard to interpret that data though, because I believe their donations in their big fundraisers for Heifer are passthrough and don't show up on this filing.

It seems to me Worldbuilders takes in and spends around $900,000 a year to keep their organization afloat, and uses that platform to raise funds for their partner charities (typically ~$1,000,000 or so per year based on press releases).

The most questionable expense is in Schedule L, Part IV: Business Transactions Involving Interested Persons: $79,200 in rent to "Elodin Holdings LLC" which is owned by "The President of Wordlbuilders Inc." (also known as Pat Rothfuss). Pat charged his charity $79,200 a year in rent in the fiscal year ending in 2019.

$6600/month in rent might make sense depending on the size of the space. They do need a warehouse and offices for working. Looking up cost per sq ft in stephens point, WI - it ranges from $8 (sketchy warehouse only space) to $18 for class B space plus another $5NNN. Assuming $14/sq NNN (a pretty good deal) - that's only 5,600 sq feet. I have a warehouse for my company that is around 3K sq ft and we only use it for staging moving things (we rent from a much larger warehouse company for storing hundreds of pallets of stuff). Based on the images they have shown, they probably need 4K sq feet just for storage, shipping, and receiving. 2,600 sq feet for 5-10 employees isn't exorbitant. It is odd that Rothfuss would rent it to them instead of them renting it from someone else. It might be he owned a building that was nice and could rent it to them on better terms than they could get in the market normally. Looking at Elodin Holdings, it looks like the only business they do is renting this space to Worldbuilders - he might have set that up so he could provide them with office space and take the space as a tax deduction (since you can't get deductions for donating to a non-profit you own.)

My only problem with worldbuilders is that they are somewhat disorganized. It would be nice to see them get better at organizing inventory coming in, shipping dates, and communication with donors. Most of that could be done via software but would mean someone spending the time to set it up and run it. I'll still support them despite their faults

Fred

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Rob F wrote: Based on what I'm seeing in this thread I'm questioning whether or not I'll ever participate in something from WB again. Not being notified of a package shipping, not being notified if you were one of the prize winners. Not being notified of anything really, and then people receiving items that were not even close to what was originally published/described. It all just seems very sloppy. And if this is sloppy it makes me question how the organization is run and what percentage of my dollars are actually going to programs vs. expenses.

Much of that information is publicly available:

www.open990.org/org/900618018/worldbuilders-inc/

It's a bit hard to interpret that data though, because I believe their donations in their big fundraisers for Heifer are passthrough and don't show up on this filing.

It seems to me Worldbuilders takes in and spends around $900,000 a year to keep their organization afloat, and uses that platform to raise funds for their partner charities (typically ~$1,000,000 or so per year based on press releases).

The most questionable expense is in Schedule L, Part IV: Business Transactions Involving Interested Persons: $79,200 in rent to "Elodin Holdings LLC" which is owned by "The President of Wordlbuilders Inc." (also known as Pat Rothfuss). Pat charged his charity $79,200 a year in rent in the fiscal year ending in 2019.

Hmmm...does world builders have a physical location they are renting?? If not then that's a big legal red flag. If they do is it Pat's house? If it is, that's a shifty way to take money from your charity and give it to yourself. Elodin is listed as a sub leasing company and is located in Stevens Point and the property it sits on is a three bedroom home valued at around $160K. If that's home base for world builders and Pat's house, the rent expense WB is paying goes right in to Pat's pocket. Legally legit I guess.

Rob F wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Rob F wrote: Based on what I'm seeing in this thread I'm questioning whether or not I'll ever participate in something from WB again. Not being notified of a package shipping, not being notified if you were one of the prize winners. Not being notified of anything really, and then people receiving items that were not even close to what was originally published/described. It all just seems very sloppy. And if this is sloppy it makes me question how the organization is run and what percentage of my dollars are actually going to programs vs. expenses.

Much of that information is publicly available:

www.open990.org/org/900618018/worldbuilders-inc/

It's a bit hard to interpret that data though, because I believe their donations in their big fundraisers for Heifer are passthrough and don't show up on this filing.

It seems to me Worldbuilders takes in and spends around $900,000 a year to keep their organization afloat, and uses that platform to raise funds for their partner charities (typically ~$1,000,000 or so per year based on press releases).

The most questionable expense is in Schedule L, Part IV: Business Transactions Involving Interested Persons: $79,200 in rent to "Elodin Holdings LLC" which is owned by "The President of Wordlbuilders Inc." (also known as Pat Rothfuss). Pat charged his charity $79,200 a year in rent in the fiscal year ending in 2019.

Hmmm...does world builders have a physical location they are renting?? If not then that's a big legal red flag. If they do is it Pat's house? If it is, that's a shifty way to take money from your charity and give it to yourself. Elodin is listed as a sub leasing company and is located in Stevens Point and the property it sits on is a three bedroom home valued at around $160K. If that's home base for world builders and Pat's house, the rent expense WB is paying goes right in to Pat's pocket. Legally legit I guess.

It's entirely possible that Elodin as a business has their office at his house, but rents out an owned building that is separate from said house to WB. In a similar example, a landlord that rents out a duplex but lives somewhere else and runs their business out of their home. Might want to pump the brakes on the pitchforks.

Exbalz wrote:

Rob F wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Rob F wrote: Based on what I'm seeing in this thread I'm questioning whether or not I'll ever participate in something from WB again. Not being notified of a package shipping, not being notified if you were one of the prize winners. Not being notified of anything really, and then people receiving items that were not even close to what was originally published/described. It all just seems very sloppy. And if this is sloppy it makes me question how the organization is run and what percentage of my dollars are actually going to programs vs. expenses.

Much of that information is publicly available:

www.open990.org/org/900618018/worldbuilders-inc/

It's a bit hard to interpret that data though, because I believe their donations in their big fundraisers for Heifer are passthrough and don't show up on this filing.

It seems to me Worldbuilders takes in and spends around $900,000 a year to keep their organization afloat, and uses that platform to raise funds for their partner charities (typically ~$1,000,000 or so per year based on press releases).

The most questionable expense is in Schedule L, Part IV: Business Transactions Involving Interested Persons: $79,200 in rent to "Elodin Holdings LLC" which is owned by "The President of Wordlbuilders Inc." (also known as Pat Rothfuss). Pat charged his charity $79,200 a year in rent in the fiscal year ending in 2019.

Hmmm...does world builders have a physical location they are renting?? If not then that's a big legal red flag. If they do is it Pat's house? If it is, that's a shifty way to take money from your charity and give it to yourself. Elodin is listed as a sub leasing company and is located in Stevens Point and the property it sits on is a three bedroom home valued at around $160K. If that's home base for world builders and Pat's house, the rent expense WB is paying goes right in to Pat's pocket. Legally legit I guess.

It's entirely possible that Elodin as a business has their office at his house, but rents out an owned building that is separate from said house to WB. In a similar example, a landlord that rents out a duplex but lives somewhere else and runs their business out of their home. Might want to pump the brakes on the pitchforks.

Don't have the forks out. Too many unknowns. Communication on the giveaways would be nice.

Rob F wrote: Based on what I'm seeing in this thread I'm questioning whether or not I'll ever participate in something from WB again. Not being notified of a package shipping, not being notified if you were one of the prize winners. Not being notified of anything really, and then people receiving items that were not even close to what was originally published/described. It all just seems very sloppy. And if this is sloppy it makes me question how the organization is run and what percentage of my dollars are actually going to programs vs. expenses.

I'm definitely right there with you. This is just terribly handled.

I completely agree that it would be nice if Worldbuilders provided prize notifications/shipment tracking. However, that's never been how they operate.

From the end-of-year fundraiser FAQ at Worldbuilders:

When will winners be announced, and if I win, how will I be notified?
Well…. they won’t be announced.

For one, it’s a privacy issue. It would be rude of us to suddenly post up everyone’s names without asking first.

For another thing, we really can’t e-mail you all individually, sort all that out, and post thousands of winners up online. It’s just not possible. Not even with the amazing abilities of the whole Worldbuilders staff- and besides, there’s more important work to be done.

If you win a prize, it will show up at your house. Keep in mind that we’re using a bulk shipping service to save money, so they’ll take a little longer to get to you. Also, you may have noticed there’s a pandemic, and that also can cause some really inconvenient delays. We will do everything we can to get the prizes in the mail as efficiently and safely as possible.

We are very much aware of the challenges involved in getting last year’s prizes out the door, as well as the Indiegogo prizes. We’ve learned a lot from both experiences, so…we’re ready to find entirely new challenges this year.

Fair warning: this is a random drawing, and therefore the odds are excruciatingly fickle, if not outright cruel at times. May they ever be in your favor.

Our advice is to assume you didn’t win, and then be pleasantly surprised if something shows up on your doorstep. (emphasis added)

Is this ideal? No. Is it how WB has always done it? To my knowledge, yes. It is up to every potential donor to decide if the lack of communication is a deal-breaker.