Plan B

Sherwin Williams seems to be unwilling (or unable) to setup an account that will work for us.  The only way they'll do it is to establish a credit account.  I'm not doing that.  What they said they COULD do is open a business account for us where people could call in with their donations and purchase gift cards.  The gift cards would then be mailed to me for distribution to the painters.  That's just too much work for me.  I'd have to track multiple gift card balances.  Yuk.

I tried to setup a PayPal account especially for this purpose but it requires connection to a bank account (and my bank account is already connected to my own PayPal account).  I called my credit union to see what it would take to setup another bank account that's not in my name.  They said I would need to establish a 'non-profit' business.  I'm not doing that either.  Too much pain in the ass.

So ... I'm considering other options.  One possibility is to use my PayPal account and distribute money to the painters as needed.  That's a really easy way to do it because you guys could go online and send it to my account very quickly (using a credit/debit card).  I don't mind doing that but that involves some trust on everybody's part.  If we did it this way, I could post a 'statement' on this site to let you know what's been donated and what we've purchased.

EDIT ... Actually, a variation of this last idea will work fine for us.  I'll solicit donations each time we need money for a painting.  That way, I don't keep a running balance of paint-related project money in my PayPal account.  I'll only ask for enough money to complete THAT project.  Perfect. 

Ok.  So we have a plan.  I'll donate money for the next painting on the schedule.

Now we just need enough volunteers to actually do the work.  :)