Note - I am not a "Jirard defender" or whatever, I do think he very clearly misled people repeatedly and that everything in the original videos is shady AF. Things need to be investigated and all the money needs to be accounted for.
That said let me lend some perspective from someone else in the business world who has donated to charity.
I think
u/karl-jobst was a little too narrow-minded and said things with too much certainty in the latest video in trying to address discrepancies.
First: Just because the gold tournament put sponsors on a sign for a given year, like 2020, does not mean all those sponsors paid again for that year, or that they paid for the same level. For example, my company donated $5k to a local charity 3 years ago at their highest level of sponsorship. We are still listed at that highest level today on their site and in their marketing. I have no problem with that.
In fact I would be more annoyed if they removed us the next year simply because we didn't donate ANOTHER $5k.
A sponsor could have gone from $5k one year to $2k the next, and PBD may have continued listing them at the higher level on the signage. We don't know.
Likewise we also don't know what was
actually paid by each sponsor. The website says "Platinum Recognition" is $$7500. But maybe, for example, a sponsor only contributed $5k in cash, and then contributed some labor or goods for the tournament, or simply promoted the tournament via marketing channels, and PBD decided to recognize them as Platinum anyway.
Again, using my company as an example, we donated ONE year at a high sponsorship level and we are still listed on the site at that level even though we have donated $0 in subsequent years.
In other words, while it's
reasonable to assume that Core Mark or Pepsi or whoever has continued to sponsor at the same amount each year, there is no actual proof of this. It's purely speculation.
Then, Karl uses the 2019 tweeted revenue figure of $109,418 for IndieLand and uses that as the basis for further calculations. But there are some problems here too.
The figure is stated as "preliminary revenue". We don't know what that means. That could be
committed revenue but not
collected. The word "preliminary" would imply the former.
It's not exactly the same thing, but for example when you run a crowdfunding campaign and people pledge money, typically some % of the pledges do not go through either because the backer cancels or the payment is declined.
These numbers can be 5-10% on a site like Kickstarter. Let's assume the low end - 5% - in that case, $5470 in revenue would never materialize because it was never collected. The base revenue number is now $103,948.
Likewise, we have no idea if the stated figure is before or after any transaction or intermediary fees. Credit cart payments typically cost 2.9% of the total plus a flat fee per transaction (usually 30 cents). Depending on the processor it could be higher.
That means on the low end, transaction fees
could eat another ~$3014 or so.
Finally,
Tiltify charges 8.5% of all contributions as a fee to the charity, according to their terms of service. This is separate from the payment processing fee. That number
could be different if there is a special arrangement made but let's assume it is simply the default.
That would be another $8,835 in fees.
So if the "preliminary revenue" number was simply initial pledges/donations BEFORE transaction fees, Tiltify fees, and any cancellations/chargebacks/failed payments, then the ACTUAL received revenue would be $92,099 - a difference of
$17,319.
In Karl's video, his math is that assuming the $109,418 was correct, PBD West would have only raised $14k.
But again, if the "preliminary revenue" number was pre-fees (etc) then the new math is that PBD West would have raised ~$31,000. And THAT number, while on the low side of what it raised in previous years, is not
egregiously low like the $14k figure.
Karl did mention Tiltify fees when looking at the 2021 number ("about $2000") but it's not clear where he got that figure, as Tiltify states their default fee is 8.5% PLUS processing fees that the charity pays to the payment processor(s), so the actual fee amount is closer to 11% - so more like $12,000, not $2,000.
And once again, that also does not take into account any failed payments, cancelations, etc.
tl;dr -
- We don't know how many actual PBD West sponsors there were for a given year just because sponsors were listed on the banner. They could have been listed due to past contributions.
- We don't know how much any specific sponsors paid per year. We know the "list rates", but PBD West could award recognition or print logos for less than that, or again, even for contributions in previous years.
- We DO know that failed payments, Tiltify fees, chargebacks, and cancellations could easily be up to 15% of all raised revenue from IndieLand
Again... things are very shady and we need a clear accounting of everything. In public. But that doesn't mean there aren't ALSO more mundane explanations for (at least some % of) the discrepancies noted in the video.