Fraud, because you called it a charity.
If you tell them openly to donate for you personally, then it isn’t fraud, but is simply a business (and you have to pay taxes)
In most jurisdictions, part of the definition of a not-for-profit (of which a charity is a more restricted subset) is that it doesn’t exist for the benefit of the members / shareholders, or a specific person.
So creating a charity / NFP and asking people to pay into it is usually okay, but the purpose of that charity can’t be to enrich you, and it is a separate legal identity (i.e. taking a charity’s funds and giving it to yourself would be embezzling). Many jurisdictions allow for sports clubs to exist as not-for-profits, but they’d generally need to be for the purpose of organising a whole team to practice, compete and so on.
Generally charities can employ people to do work for them and pay them, but (varies by jurisdiction) they generally need to be not paid above a fair market rate for the work they actually do to advance the goals of the charity.
If the goal is to help a legitimate cause, you could also ask them to donate to an existing not-for-profit for the cause.
Disclaimer: IANAL, and anyway all of this would vary by jurisdiction - not legal advice!
So then wait. So why not just make a charity, then employ myself as manager or something.
In most countries charities have reporting requirements and rules to follow to stop exactly this method of fraud.
Do your initials happen to be NCAA?
Let’s assume you’re not pissing off the IRS in some way.
Illegal? No. Against NCAA rules? Maybe.
Completely legal.
A charity implies your giving out to someone else. I’d stick with an honest gofundme that explains that the money is for your personal use.
Even then, I don’t think the school is going to be willing to “donate” to it in order to avoid illegally paying you directly.
Calling it a charity may be illiegal if its not registered. Maybe you want your own PAC where people could donate.
That’s the way; study political science in university and set up a PAC towards your election for some far off date. Have anyone interested donate to the PAC, and then spend years trying to get elected after you graduate, using those funds for your campaign — many different types of activities can count as campaigning.
