General Questions:

Q: What is Child’s Play?

A: Child’s Play is a registered charity dedicated to improving the lives of children undergoing treatment in the hospital with toys and games. The charity supports a network of over 70 hospitals worldwide.

Q: How does donating money work?

A: All money donated through Desert Bus goes directly to Child’s Play. We do not actually receive or handle any of the money, but we do use a custom built donation tracking system to log your donations, so we know when you’ve donated for auctions, if you’ve entered a raffle and how much money we’ve made.

Q: Can I get a tax receipt for my donation?

A: If you live or pay taxes in the US, you can claim your donations. Child’s Play’s tax ID number is EIN: 20-3584556. If you have questions about tax receipts, please ask your tax adviser.

Q: How can I help?

A: There are lots of ways to help Desert Bus, but the best way to to spread awareness. You can help us by promoting Desert Bus on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, blogs and in person. This year’s Desert Bus event poster is available as a JPG and a PNG.

Q: How can I join the Craft-Along?

A: Details for next year’s Craft-Along will be posted in 2012. Watch this website for more information.

Q: Do you have a Facebook page? Are you on Twitter?

A: We have both a Facebook Page and a Twitter account. We often give away prizes through social media.

Technical Questions:

Q: What are Donor Accounts?

A: Donor accounts are a new feature this year. They allow you to bid on live and silent auctions, issue challenges track your bidding history and allow us to notify you if you win an auction. All you need to set one up is a valid email address, no other personal information is required.  You can register for your Donor Account here.

Q: Why do I need a Donor Account?

Donor accounts enable us to get in touch with you and see when you’ve made donations for auction items or challenges. This makes it easier for us to ship your goods in a timely manner and get to your challenges faster.

Q: How do I log into my Donor Account?

You log in with your email address and a password of your choice. If you’ve forgotten your password you can reset it by going here.

Q: How do Donation Challenges work on the Donate page? 

A: We often do “donation challenges” where we give away a prize to someone who has donated a specific amount of money in a specific time period. When we do this there will be an option on the donation page for Donation Challenges. For example, we might do a raffle where between the hours of noon and 1:00 pm, everyone who donated exactly $5 would be entered to win a prize. By using the Donation Challenge option, you can purchase 5 entries for a single donation of $25. This way you only have to pay PayPal fees once.

Q: How can I join the chat?

A: You can join the chat from the web interface on the main page of the Desert Bus website. Desert Bus uses an IRC chat system so you can also use the chat client of your choice to participate.

If you wish to join the Desert Bus chat while using an IRC client (such as mIRC or for PC or Colloquy for Mac) open up your client and make irc.desertbus.org your chat server.  To register your name in the chat /quote ns register [a password] [your email address] (for example: /ns register password1 test@test.org ). You will soon receive an email which will have a verification code which you then copy and paste into the chat. Voila! You’re a registered user of the chat!

Q: Can I bid on a live auction without participating in the IRC chat?

A: Unfortunately no. The IRC chat has proven time and time again to be the best and fairest way to allow people from all over the world to participate in our live auctions. Note you do not need to use the chat to bid on silent auctions, but you still need a Donor account.

Q: I’m in the chat, why can’t I bid on an auction?

A: Only people with registered Donor Accounts can bid on auctions. Donor accounts are free, and you can sign up for one here.

Q: I’m in the chat AND I have a Donor account, why can’t I bid on an auction?

A: Please ensure the email address you used for your Donor account matches the one you registered to the chat. If the emails do not match, you can add a secondary email addresses to your Donor Account through the “Edit Profile” link near the top-right of the Donor site.

Q: What is this Team Kroze vs. Team Ashton thing?

A: It is only the single most important question in the world. Are you Team Kroze or Team Ashton? It is up to you to decide, but make your choice wisely, the fate of the entire universe rests on your shoulders. (Not really.)