Would you be willing to...

[cropman]

Would you be willing to donate your leftover points, (i.e. X points you have leftover at the end of your year) to charity so they could book a room to help a terminally ill child, like Make A Wish, or any other charity that helps sick children? Some questions though. How many days out would you have to donate them in order for it to work? 60, 30, more days or less? You couldn't donate them 2 days before they expire. To the accountants out there would the person donating them be able to take a tax write off and how much? I have heard it won't work because of some technacalities, why won't it work? Disney already helps some of these charities would it help them out more? More questions as the thread develops. All feedback is greatly appreciated.

J.C. Colville

 

[PamOKW]

This comes up from time to time. I'm not sure why but DVC does not seem to want to be involved in such a program.

One thought people have made is donating the points in the form of a "trip" that can be auctioned to support a charity. You might also be able to do this directly with something like Make-a-Wish.

 

[slindamood]

Instead of wanting DVC to coordiate the effort, which would involve people pouring small amounts of points in, why don't you organize it. Get enough people to pledge one night's points each to the charity. You could keep track of who is willing to donate points and you could coordiante the bookings when the charity requests. If it would not violate the limit on transfers, you could organize an effort to have people transfer points to you and you put together the package for the charity.

 

[Dean]

Donations of timeshare usage is not deductable but donation of ownership can be. It has something to do with no real direct value of the usage vs ownership. Now I realize that the usage does have value to us and to renters but you must look at this in the overall context of timeshares. Most timeshare weeks that are donated are at times of the year, locations or short notice in such a way the the donor is just getting rid of something they would not have used anyway and are just doing it for the tax writeoff.

Dean

 

[cropman]

Would Disney let me coordinate that? I'm not sure they would. It would be easy to keep track of that's no problem. People could dump them into my account, (would prefer it be a seperate account) and when there were enough points there for what the charity wanted, book the trip. If anyone wanted to see an accounting that would also be easy, just send them a copy of the accounts transactions.

J.C. Colville

 

[normr]

The only way it would work is if the points are transferred to the special account, but then if it''s just one person who is doing this, funny things could happen, I'm not saying you would do this as you are probably a fine outstanding person as am I, but I've seen other people use things like this to their benefit at times. Before you know it we might even see the points up on ebay instead.

The only way it works is if the organization bought a small contract to have ownership and members like us could transfer the points directly to them for them to dole out and set up stays.

They do it all the time for frequent flyer miles, the problem here is that they would have to be an owner possibly and that costs money to join whereas mileage programs are free.

Now if Disney is willing to give them a corporate donation of an ownership, that would work out.

If you are already involved with Make a Wish Foundation, then speak to them, but I think they already have something set up with Disney because they're always sending kids there now.

Good luck.é

 

[cropman]

Norm, I agree totally. Like I said, would prefer a seperate account and I like the idea of a corporate account. The charity could manage it and be responsible for it. It would legitimize it and people would be less leery of what was really happening with the points.

J.C. Colville

 

[RobDoc]

This would be a great question to ask of DVC. It will take some coordination on the part of DVC and might take some personnel (volunteer or otherwise) but it would seem to be such a natural means to share our resorts with others. It would be nice if the details could be worked out.
Thanks, JC!

 

[KevinNYC]

Some of us brought up this topic to DVC in 1992 or 1993. Back then, we were told that generally Disney ( not DVC )was involved with an off-site facility in Orlando which is totally devoted to children and families facing those terrible situations. It was not a Make a Wish facility but a larger and complete facility used by many charities. Also, the facility had the kind of employees and counselors trained to deal with these situations. Of course, there were special transportation etc made available as well as coordinated visits to the parks with special tours for those kids. There were also coorinated trips to Universal & Sea World. So we concluded that the off site facility was better equiped to deal with the situations likely to come up with such visits. Some of us actually did see the facility but I can't recall the name of it. Disney didn't own or operate it but did contribute to its success. Maybe, some of our "extra" points could be valued by DVC and then perhaps Disney could make an "extra" contribution to the off site facility based upon our point donation. It might be better to use the points to support the off site location since it was designed primarily for these situations.

 

[SueM in MN]

The place that KevinNYC is talking about is the Give Kids the World Children's Village. It is set up specifically for the purpose of having kids with life threatening conditions and their families stay there. I haven't been there, but have seen multiple magazine articles about it. CLICK HERE FOR Give Kids the World Website. The DIS site sponsored a chatathon in November to benefit GKTW and a number of people have posted on the disABILITIES Board about having stayed there.

SueM in MN
Co-Moderator of disABILITIES

 

[fkj2]

OK, I'm confused. Do the folks utilizing Give the Kids the World stay at a special hotel or are they housed anywhere on Dis property wherever there is availability.

And, not to dwell on this, I had had two extra tickets to Mickey's X-mas party in December, since my niece and nephew couldn't join us, which I gave to GKTW. I was feeling pretty pitiful for myself, missing them, but while I was sitting on the monorail, outside the doors waiting for the next train were a couple of kids whom I wondered, could they be there on those tickets. I could never know for sure; but I felt like God had told me those kids and their family, where ever they were, needed those tickets more.

 

[Peggy Sue]

In today's mail I received a thank you note from give kids the world for our contribution last fall (from the DIS event) I really didn't have much knowledge of this organization until the DIS announced their event. The letter came with a flyer that explained their property. They have 90 some odd 2 bedroom bungalows on their property, along with pools, that are wheel chair friendly, play areas and food areas. It looked great. Families visiting for a week have no expenses, including visiting WDW theme parks. It certainly is a wonderful organization and one we will continue to support.

Their stationary listed their board of directors..quite an impressive list from corporate america, including WDW.

Have a wonderful day!

 

[dan and scott]

Make a Wish foundation goes through Give Kids The World---which is where most of the Disney/Orlando theme park "wishes" go through.

Dan and I have toured the complete facilities(GKTW)this past december.

Disney donates rather heavily to this charity as they are one of the founding companys who back it.
There are many national sponsors-Kmart,Perkins,Sea World,UniversalEastman Kodak,Holiday Inn,Mears,IBM,Hyatt,Hard Rock,and Sony just to name a few.

Disney's fingerprint is extensive throughout the 50+acre resort--which is by the way all inclusive.
The buildings are disneyesque all throughout--from the castle where ill children greet Mickey and his friends daily, tothe cupcake building (sponsored by Perkins) where the kids have breakfast/dinner, to the sundae building, to the (sponsored by Friendly's Ice cream)and so on.
Disney also grants ticket media through GKTW to the individual families.
GKTW has individual guest homes for families having their individual wishes granted.

Scott
It truelly is an amazing charity to contribute to--VERY legitement--so don't hesitate giving to it!!