Frequently Asked Questions

Livestream Fundraisers

What Is A Charity Livestream?

A live, online event where an individual or team of broadcasters provides entertainment while encouraging viewers to donate online to a non-profit.

Usually there is also some form of community interaction through chat systems and donations (donate $X in order to influence the games being played, commission a sketch, perform a specific song, drink hot sauce, etc.).

What Kinds Of Events Can Be Livestreamed For Charity?

All kinds! Video game commentary, art creation, live music, live podcasts, or anything else where a creator is entertaining and interacting live with the community. The type of event is only limited by the broadcaster’s imagination & resources.

Where Do I Find More Information About Running A Charity Stream?

Check out the CLS Resources page for guides, assets, and more!

CharityLiveStream.com - General Information

What Is CharityLiveStream.com (CLS)?

CharityLiveStream.com, by Kitestrings LLC, is a fundraising focused "LinkedIn" for gamers, artists, and their communities to grow their talents through fun events that help others.

Users submit their fundraising events to the central calendar, get organizational & promotional resources to boost outreach, and have the events automatically logged in their portfolio profiles.

Users can then add their social media, interests, skills, past work, causes, and availability for a variety of charitable and non-charitable projects from the community, nonprofits, and businesses.

As users refine their talents and grow their networks through livestream fundraisers, their verified portfolio profile is proof of their talents as they pursue new projects on the Opportunity board.

All of these come together in the CLS platform to create an ecosystem of individuals and organizations continually expanding their skills in everything from entertainment, promotion, & visual design to digital technology, event organization, and community management. All while raising awareness and funds to help those in need through no fault of their own.
 

Who Is CLS Built For?

CLS is focused on gamers, but designed for any individual or group with a passion to do good and interested in running, participating in, and supporting livestream fundraisers:

  • Viewers
  • Broadcasters & Entertainers
  • Artists & Graphic Designers
  • Fundraising Teams
  • Nonprofits
  • Game Developers
  • Businesses
  • Marketers
  • Community Managers
  • Media Groups

Whether they're in front of a camera or running things from behind the curtain, CLS empowers the community to connect and promote one another while growing their skills through charity events.
 

What Are The Core Features Of CharityLiveStream.com?

The Core Features are:

  1.  A Central Event Listing of Past and Upcoming Events
  2.  Portfolio Profiles Promoting Individuals Abilities, Causes, Interests, Past Experience, and Availability For New Projects
  3. Community Search Based Around Interests, Mentoring, & Talents
  4.  Teams For Communities, Nonprofits, & Businesses That Members Can Join
  5.  An Opportunity Board For Both Charity & Non-charity Projects
     

How Do These Features Help The Community?

CLS is built on 4 core concepts reflected in the features mentioned above: Promotion, Collaboration, Individual Growth, and New Opportunities.

Promotion
Submit your event to the master calendar and get a professional, shareable event page which provides all the links and information about who your charity is, why you’re spending your time raising money for them, and how the community can be involved with your event.

Build hype before your event by giving your community information ahead of time. The page can easily be shared to various social channels and personal reminders of the event can be added via iCal or Google Calendar.

Collaboration
Promote the skills you have, how you’re willing to partner with others (Community, Non-profits, Businesses), and how you’re most comfortable being contacted by each group.

Build your fund raising team based on the roles/skills you need and quickly get your event up and running.

Individual Growth
In addition to tools, you can access knowledge through the How To Guides and contribute what you know to others through the CLS Wikia.

Build your experience in organization, promotion, broadcasting, and more as you complete charity events. Use the archive of past events to build out a portfolio that serves as a showcase of what you can do.

New Opportunities
The next step for the site will be the “Opportunity Board” where community members can connect directly with non-profits, businesses, and other members for both charity and non-charity projects.

Whether you’re looking for sponsors, volunteers, or a talented pool of people, it makes much more sense to have a central place to find others who actually opt-in to working together.
 

So CLS Is Basically A Support System For The Gaming & Art Communities?

Yes, but it’s also so much more!

CLS provides a path and platform for someone with nothing but a drive to do good to learn all about charity streaming, connect with others who share their passion, and build talents centered around whatever personal growth or career goals they have.

The end result is an ecosystem of those dedicated to helping others. The potential of which is mind blowing considering the enormous success of so far.
 

What Makes CLS Unique From What's Already Out There?

CLS is the first and only platform to offer integrated event promotion, automatic portfolio creation, team management, knowledge resources, and collaboration opportunities for those using their creative passions for helping others.

The site also is unique in it’s pledge to NEVER take a direct percentage of money raised by our members.
 

Is CLS A Nonprofit Organization?

CLS is NOT a registered non-profit. It’s a platform built by Kitestrings LLC, a for-profit, start-up with a focus on empowering the community, non-profits, and businesses while never taking a percentage of donations.
 

How Does The Fundraising & Donation Process Work? 

CharityLiveStream.com does NOT handle donation processing. An event submitted usually has a target fund raising goal and donations are handled via a 3rd party donation platform or directly on the non-profit’s website if they have those capabilities. This adds a level of trust for those donating to the charity, since the broadcaster does not touch the donations while still being able to track comments & progress.

There are new technologies coming out every year in the donation space giving more and more options to donators, broadcasters, and nonprofits alike.  The plethora of new platforms for fundraising now allows for plenty of alternatives that ensure donations are processed quickly and securely.

It’s always best to contact the nonprofit you want to fund raise for to determine their preferred crowdsourced donation platform.

Note: There are some individuals who still use the method of donating to a personal account (Paypal, etc) and then dispersing the collected funds directly to the charity in question. THIS IS NOT RECOMMENDED. Not only is it seen by the community to be suspicious, but funds taken into a personal account are considered personal income and are hit with a tax burden, even if all funds are subsequently donated to the nonprofit in question. Additionally, events with direct Paypal donations to the broadcaster are not accepted on the site without express written permission from the benefiting nonprofit.

ALWAYS BE SURE TO DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH ON THE BROADCASTER, GIVING PROCESS, AND BENEFITING CHARITY BEFORE MAKING ANY ONLINE DONATION.
 

If You Don't Take A Percentage Of Donations, How Do You Keep The Lights On?

By keeping costs low and offering premium features & services. CLS has been a one man operation since Feb. 2015 and I have continually kept a long term focus on it’s growth and success.

If you like what CLS is working towards, please upgrade your membership to VIP to support our efforts while accessing some awesome features.

What Are The Technical Requirements To Use CLS?

The CharityLiveStream.com website can be accessed from any web browser and is mobile optimized for phones and tablets. Basic accounts are Forever Free, so if you have internet access, you can use the site.

CharityLiveStream.com - Events

Do I Need A VIP Membership To Put My Event On The Site?

No, however your account will need to be verified before you can submit events or personal projects to the site. Be sure to sign in and submit an Account Verification Request if you want to promote your event on CLS!
 

What Are The Requirements For Posting An Event?

Submitting Events
Only users with Verified CLS accounts can submit events to be promoted and the events submitted must be organized by, or officially authorized to promote, the individual posting the event. All events must pass the review process to be published.

Passing Review
There are 3 main requirements for a submitted event to pass the review process and be posted on CLS:

  1. The event MUST be a Fundraiser Benefiting a Nonprofit Organization. 
    Personal fundraisers, those to benefits specific individuals, and "split fundraisers" where the broadcaster/team takes a portion of money raised are not eligible for promotion on CharityLiveStream.com. The benefiting nonprofit must have an existing CLS account and that account must be selected.
     
  2. The event MUST be able to be Watched Live Online with Specific Start & End Times.
    Charity fundraisers without the ability to be watched live online are not "livestreams" (which is the point of the site) and events for extended periods without a posted schedule in the description (ex: all month) are not as effective since it's difficult to determine when the viewer should tune in.
     
  3. The event MUST have a nonprofit specific donation page or a verified 3rd party donation tracking page. 

    NOTE: Donation pages linked to individual PayPal, Twitch, or other personal accounts are NOT allowed UNLESS you email a copy of express, written permission by the benefiting nonprofit for that specific event to info@charitylivestream.com.

Can I Stream My Event Through Your Website?

No. CLS does not offer streaming capabilities, only event promotion and crediting the individuals involved. The footage for your event needs to be streamed to a broadcast hosting site. You can learn more about broadcasting hosts & streaming in the CLS guides on the Resources page.
 

What Do I Do After An Event Is Over?

Now that your event is over, you can add your final total raised by editing your event page and adding the total to your donation page in the donation verification section.

The event itself automatically is logged into the organizer's portfolio profile, along with any supporter's, the nonprofit's, and any sponsoring business's profiles.

If you haven't already, be sure to fill out your profile with the information you want others to know about you and, after you create some highlights from the stream and export them to YouTube (a really simple process with Twitch's Highlights feature if you used Twitch to broadcast), add the YouTube URL for those highlights into your profile to embed the video an add the appropriate links.

CharityLiveStream.com - Opportunity Board

What Is The CLS Opportunity Board?

The CLS Opportunity Board is a job board with both charity & non-charity focused projects & employment posted by fundraising teams, nonprofits, and businesses.

What Are The Requirements For Posting An Opportunity?

Submitting Opportunities
Submitting projects to the Opportunity Board requires a Verified Nonprofit account or an upgraded Premium account. Opportunities can be posted through Team created to assign the opportunity to that team and further promote the opportunity to all members. All submitted opportunities must pass review before being posted.

Passing Review
In order to pass review an opportunity must follow 3 guidelines:

  1. The opportunity must clearly indicate whether it's a volunteer or paid project/employment.
  2. If it is a paid project or employment opportunity, the pay or pay range MUST be included in the posting.
  3. Commission or partial commission based employment opportunities (Sales positions) are not eligible for Featured promotion on the CLS Opportunity Board and will not pass review unless explicitly stated as such.

CharityLiveStream.com - Individuals

How Does CLS Help Individuals?

CLS is built to help individuals build their skills, portfolios, networks, and communities through charity livestreams.  As such, most of the features are built to benefit individuals who have the drive to improve themselves and help others, even if they don't have the knowledge or previous experience. Signing up for an individual account is always free.

Individual Accounts have 3 levels: Viewer, Verified CLS Member, and Premium CLS Member

For the full list of features available to each account level, please check out the CLS User Guide.
 

How Are Individual Profiles Set up?

Individual portfolio profiles are built for you to promote your skills, interests, causes you care about, past accomplishments, and availability for new opportunities.

Any information left blank is hidden from your profile, so fill in just the area that are relevant to you in order to be found by the community.

IMPORTANT: Portfolio profile information is publicly accessible. Logged out users and users with certain roles may be restricted from viewing some aspects of your portfolio, but the portfolio itself is meant to be a public display and confirmation of your talents. NEVER place personal information you do not want publicly shared with the world in your profile. 

How Are CLS Accounts Verified For Identity?

CLS accounts can be verified by submitting an Account Verification Request, which will go through manual verification of identity & ownership:

 - Within the verification request users must submit all 3rd party accounts that they wish to verify and add into their CLS profile.

- Users must also provide a link (within the about section or as a post on the platform) on each 3rd party account pointing back to the CLS profile. 

- A real, live human (shocking, we know) will then manually verify that the accounts point to one another.


Once confirmed, the 3rd party accounts will be added to the Verified Accounts section of the profile, along with links to SocialBlade where applicable, and the account itself will be upgraded to CLS Verified Identity status.

Verified accounts gain the ability to submit charity livestreams and personal projects to the site and any changes or additions to Verified Accounts require a new Account Verification Request submission.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Because this is a manual process of human verification, the time to review can take from just a few hours, up to 2-4 weeks depending on volume of submissions.

VIP members of any type will be processed prior to those with a free account, but still in the order received. (Older VIP submissions will be processed prior to newer VIP submissions.)

How Do I Edit My Profile?

Click on "My account" at the top of any page or in your Tools menu and then click on Edit at the top of your profile. After changes are complete, click Save to save your changes.

To edit verified links to social media and 3rd party website accounts, submit a new Account Verification Request listing out all outbound links. Note: New links/accounts to a CLS profile will need a verifying post or link back on the requested page at the time of the verification request in order to be accepted. 

CharityLiveStream.com - Fundraising Teams

How Does CLS Help Fundraising Teams?

CLS gives your team a home at the heart of a community focused on helping others while growing individual talents. A Team on CLS allows you to promote your team with banner images, video, links, and text descriptions while also empowering the community to join your team with the click of a button.

Team leaders can view the talents and supported causes of their members, keep the community informed with Updates, provide resources with Streaming Toolkits, and fill team needs by posting new projects as Opportunities which are also added to the Opportunity Board for larger exposure. 
 

How Are Fundraising Team Profiles Set up?

Team profiles are built for you to promote your group, content, causes your team cares about, past accomplishments, and availability for new opportunities.

Any information left blank is hidden from your profile, so fill in just the area that are relevant to your team in order to be found by the community.

CharityLiveStream.com - Nonprofits

How Does CLS Help Nonprofits?

There are many benefits for Verified nonprofit Accounts. Signing up for a unique nonprofit account is free for any US 501c3 status nonprofit with a verified nonprofit email. All Verified Nonprofits gain access to event posting, team creation, unique user search/outreach features, and Opportunity Board posting for their organization.

For the full list of nonprofit features, please check out the CLS User Guide.

CharityLiveStream.com - Business

How Does CLS Help Businesses?

Businesses have several benefits using the site both in Basic & Premium accounts. Signing up for a basic business account is free and businesses at the Basic level gain access to event posting, viewing individual preferences for business partnership, and more.

Premium accounts gain even more features like advanced user search, team creation, and Opportunity Board posting for both charity & non-charity projects & employment.

For the full list of business features, please check out the CLS User Guide.