Alright,

I know that there is already a topic started on this, but personally I think that the moderators ought to put this in a sticky on every forum on this board. Bottom line: The server bill is coming due. Nathan is auctioning off stuff to pay it. He should not have to. Therefore everyone pony up some cash if you enjoy this site! :) If it's 5 dollars it's 5 dollars. Quit slacking and do it.

I agree 100%. No way Nathan should have to bear this cost himself and sell off collection pieces. Where/how do I send a donation? Please advise.

Terry

This afternoon alone, $100 has been donated (probably more, that's just what has been donated since I looked earlier). That tells me that people really do care about this site, they just haven't made the donation until the last minute. So thank you to those who have donated, and at the same time, lets not wait so long in the future. Like everyone else, I hate to see Nathan sell off stuff to fund the site (especially since I can afford a $10 donation, but can't afforda $900 sword at the moment). I'm sure it saves Nathan a lot of heart burn when the money comes in early, and he doesn't have to spend the last two weeks before payment time wondering where the funds will come from.

-Grey

Getting the money in earlier--good idea Greyson. Are there formal fundraising drives? I wonder if a twice yearly campaign for funds would work (or has been tried)? By campaign I mean real purposeful drives for funds, like public television or university alumni offices--kind of like what we're doing now. Do people from the replica arms and armour industry make contibutions? I know some individuals do, but do companies? As I said in another thread, many companies (e.g. Albion, A&A, etc.) have a stake in the success of a site like myArmoury.com--a gathering place for a good chunk of their customers.

A nice thing about using paypal to donate (and I just learned this today) is that you don't need to sign up for their service--you can just donate.

Jonathan

Jean Thibodeau has kind of become the unofficial campaign coordinator for fund raising. He periodically revives the "Server Performance" thread and reminds people of the need for financial assistance with the site. Other than that, no, there have not been any formal drives. Personally, I would have mixed feelings about that if I were the one in Nathan's shoes. I am not however, and so will leave that decision to him.

I will say that Nathan's announcements and other links pertaining to the matter have been rather subtle. Take, for example, the contribute link at the top of the page. I normally don't see much of anything above the "there have been X number of forum posts since your last visit" line. In fact, it wasn't until I wrote a couple of reviews for the site that I figured out where the contribution center was (and that because Chad sent the links to me). So perhaps a more obvious link/announcement would be a good idea. I would also suggest that fund raising efforts migrate to this or a similar thread, as "Server Performance" doesn't really capture the spirit of what that thread has become, and is really easy to ignore if you haven't had any trouble with the server.

I think there is a little bit of a stigma about companies donating, as it might appear that there was an effort to influence what is said in the reviews. Since the reviews are written by numerous people who would never see that money, there is no real likelihood of that happening, but one does still want to avoid creating a poor impression. It may be that individuals who happen to be part of those businesses do donate. They no doubt do so anonymously, so we should be careful about pointing fingers (I don't think that is what you are trying to do, it's just one of those things that can develope from an innocent comment), as they may already be doing "their share." If so, we will probably never know about it.

By the way, good catch on the Pay Pal thing. I had just assumed one had to be registered with them.

-Grey

I agree with everything you said, Greyson. I do not think that donors should be publicly identified if they do not wish it. I did not mean to sound accusatory, and I apologize if I came across that way. I also don't think that Nathan should have to be the fund raiser, especially if he does not feel comfortable in that role, as has been indicated earlier. I think fundraising is more effective if it is grassroots, anyhow. If site members are the ones who are really pulling hard for the site and asking for people to donate, I think that will only speak to the quility of the site, and will really emphasize the need to give. I am suggesting that more of us should do what Jean does: remind members to give and to advocate for the maintenance of the site. I personally feel bad for waiting so long before donating--it's something I should have done a few months ago. I hope we can make donations even out throughout the year to avoid the Fall rush, and so Nathan can keep the handsome pieces in his collection!

Let's forward thank paypal thanks to Nathan. I was going to pay via money order since I didn't want a paypal account, and he pointed out that paypal would let me donate regardless. Thanks, Nathan!.

BTW: as of 6:36 EST on 10/16/06 we've collected 1030.00 towards our goal of 1450 USD! Great job, everyone! Let's keep the momentum going! If it's been a year since your last contribution, consider making another!

This is always a hard thing for me to deal with.. I want to thank Jean and Russ for lighting the fires on this one.

The last donation drive made me code a bunch of stuff to make this stuff official and make sure that all funds are accounted for and everything is fully disclosed to the public, etc. etc. I did this to make sure that everything stays legitimate and all record-keeping is done automatically and kept digital. I didn't feel comfortable making things really stand out and so opted to keep it subtle and threw it at the bottom of the forum page and at the bottom of a couple other pages.

I'm taking everyone's advise so far in this topic. I've already started to make the donation stuff less subtle. I've also made efforts to explain the process more, especially to note that PayPal does not require a membership or account to send payments via credit card.

The actual Donation Page now lists the donation goal, the donors, and all that. It also has the explanation about PayPal.

The Contributor Center now has the donation pitch right at the top for those who have not yet donated. If you've already donated, you won't be bugged by it again. I'll likely add this pitch to our homepage, too.

Now I need to talk myself into making an official donation drive. These member-initated drives are welcome, for sure, and again I thank those of you who have really driven them.

Again, thank you to everyone.

Nathan,
The changes you have made are fantastic! I think that making available more info on donating really removes perceived barriers to giving. I think it's pretty fantastic that in a matter of hours we have raised more than $200! If you want help with any type of planned drive, I would be happy to help in whatever way I can, and I'm sure others would like to help, too.

Jonathan

Just $95 to go at this point. Well done, folks! Let's keep it up.

I didn't know that you didn't need to have a paypal account in order to use it; that makes things a lot easer :D

Just sent in my lot. Lets keep it coming folks.......

Nathan, Thanks for all you do to keep this site up & running.....Cheers to you lad.......


Bill

Alright gentlemen and ladies too I just had a look and it seems we are about 25 dollars short at this point. Now someone come out with that last 25 dollars and we will have this thing under control. :)

So far so good. I'm really impressed with the way that this community is responding. The internet is free and so is this site, but if we want to keep the quality that we have come to expect... well, in the end there is truly no such thing as a free lunch. Kudos to all of you.

And the goal is reached ! ;)

So Nathan, do you still need to sell that regent?

What do the member donations stats look like now? What percentage of active members have given towards the current goal? I think it might be worth tracking this over time in order to measure the success of possible future fund drives.

WOO HOO! Goal met and exceeded!!! Way to go guys!