Loading
A website that moves money between strangers sits close to several bodies of law, and most of them exist because somebody once did this badly and people lost money. Rally is shaped around them rather than around what would be most convenient, and a few things that look like limitations are the reason it can exist at all.
This describes how Rally is built and the thinking behind it. It is not legal advice, and it is not a claim that every question here is settled.
money transmission
Taking money from one person to pass to another is money transmission, and it needs a licence in nearly every state. The licences cost more than this product will make for a long time, and holding a pot of money owed to people who have not asked yet is the clearest version of doing it.
what rally does
Stripe holds those licences and moves every dollar. Rally never keeps a contribution it cannot pass on. When there is nobody in the queue who can be paid, Rally stops charging altogether rather than banking the money for later, and a charge that slips through is refunded in full. There is no pot, so there is nothing being held for anybody.
insurance
Premiums paid now in exchange for money later, if something goes wrong, is the shape of an insurance policy. Insurers are regulated heavily and for good reason. A membership that made you eligible to receive would be exactly that, even with everyone treated equally.
what rally does
Contributing buys you nothing. It does not make you eligible to receive, it does not move you up the queue, and it does not increase what you can ask for. Anybody with a free account can join the queue whether they have ever paid a penny or not. That separation is deliberate and it is the reason the door stays open to people who cannot afford to contribute.
securities
If people hand over money expecting more back, that is a security, and selling one without registration is a serious problem.
what rally does
Nothing here returns money. There is no yield, no share, no upside, and no circumstance in which contributing pays you. What you get is that somebody else is helped.
charitable solicitation
Asking the public for money on the promise of helping people in need, and then deciding who those people are, is charitable solicitation. Most states with a charity regulator require registration for it, and it brings duties over how the money is handled.
what rally does
Rally does not choose. The order people arrived in chooses, it is published, and anybody can check it. A request can be removed, but only against a short list of things that are objectively about legality and truthfulness rather than about whether somebody deserves help.
gaming
Money in, and a chance of money out, is a lottery. Running one without a licence is a criminal matter in most places.
what rally does
There is no chance in it anywhere. The queue is strict arrival order, it is public, and you can watch your own position move. Nothing is drawn, weighted, or randomised.
Some months Rally will not charge you. If nobody is in the queue who can be paid, your contribution does not happen, and you get an email saying so. When somebody joins, you get another one before billing starts again. That is the price of Rally never sitting on money that belongs to somebody else, and it is worth it.
The other cost is the ceiling. Rally will not accept a request it cannot fund in about three months at the rate people are actually contributing, which today is a smaller number than most people expect. That arithmetic is here, and the only thing that moves it is more people.
The interesting part is $3 a month from enough people landing on somebody who needed it and did not have to explain themselves to get it. Everything on this page exists so that can keep happening rather than being shut down in its first year.