Our bike group wants to raise some money to fund some of the expenses we're
> incurring to build a float, and we want to encourage all our members to
> pitch in a buck or two.
>
For artsy things like that, you probably want to go with Kickstarter. I know a few people who have used it recently and reported good things about it.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2010/10/crowd-funding_art
For general fundraising, I believe PayPal is still the gold standard.
(Apropos of nothing, it appears that Microsoft's bundled dictionary doesn't recognize "fundraising" as a valid word, although it has no objection to "artsy." How weird is that?)
-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."