[Foundation-l] Quick thoughts on fundraising

[Daniel Mayer]

--- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> I can't make any claims to be a representative user, but I personally 
> find these sorts of things *really* annoying.  When I'm trying to read 
> an encyclopedia article, I don't want a "give us money!" link at the 
> top, especially one with exclamation marks in it!  If it were some sort 
> of big bar thing, that'd be so much the worse, especially since it 
> doesn't go away when I actually *do* give money.  Letting me hide them 
> would be nice.

Slashdot allows subscribers to turn off advertisements. Perhaps we could do the
same thing except for donation notices? A skyscrapper donation button might
work best since it allows the article content to be higher. I still am not
gun-ho for such a thing, but I would not oppose it. 
 
> I also think if these things become a regular occurance, you're going to 
> see the donations rate get lower each time.  People are wiling to donate 
> rapidly for exceptional circumstances (like the k5 fundraiser, or the 
> first Wikimedia fundraiser), but using them as a normal revenue stream 
> doesn't sound that promising, imo, since it makes it sound like we're 
> perpetually doing "emergency" fundraising, which starts to sound like 
> "crying wolf" after a while.

Non-profits very regularly have fund drives and very regularly bring in
millions of dollars. The National Public Radio Station in my area brings in
over a million dollars from listeners each year and their listenership is much
less than our readership. So I don't see any logic in your statement. 

This is also *not* emergency funding. We are starting to move away from that
and move toward a more regular fund drive cycle (I would like one each quarter
in order to more cleanly meet budgetary goals - which will also be tracked by
quarter). 

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


		
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