Keep WDS Alive - Annual Donation Drive 2006

[Rob]

Note: This is the Fundraiser thread for 2006. We are currently fund raising for 2007. Please visit the 2007 WDS fund raiser thread.


What's Going On?
Last week Weekly Davespeak suffered a temporary service outage that was a result of repeated overload of the server we are hosted on. We need to move to a "dedicated" server.

Main Costs
The server that we would like to move Weekly Davespeak to costs $130/month plus a $99 setup fee. The newsletter costs $40/month to run. There is a $30 fee to keep the bulletin board license up to date.

Update: Paypal takes ~5% off the top of donations, I did not realize this before but it needs to be included into our fundraising target. So the revised total to operate Weekly Davespeak for one year will be $2277.45.

Please note that any money left over from this drive will be applied towards the 2007 hosting costs. (Though this is as bare bones as I can envision.)

How Much Should I Give?
WDS has 1349 active board members. Active means that they visited the forums or website in the past 30 days. As it stands, donations of $5-$10 should be enough. Donating more is greatly appreciated but should not be necessary.

Donation Options
Donations are linked to your email address. Paypal reports directly to Weekly Davespeak several details about the transaction, (though none of them include your CC or anything of that matter). If you would like your donation linked to your username, either: 1.) Your Paypal account must be under the same email address as the WDS forum. 2.) You need to let me know in the "Notes" of the payment what your username is, or 3.) Pay by CC and put your WDS registered email address in the e-mail.

You do not need a Paypal account to donate, Paypal accepts all major CC's.

WDS Donors
Donations to Weekly Davespeak are anonymous. We do not wish to compel users into donating by publicly highlighting who has and has not donated. Instead we ask you to consider how you have used and plan to continue to use WDS in the future and make a donation based on your personal connection to the site.

The Future of WDS
The future of WDS depends on the success of this fundraising campaign. now in its second year of operation it receives well over 30,000 unique visitors a month, and supports over 2,800 newsletter subscribers. WDS is run by a staff of volunteers.

Your donation is an investment in this site. Once it becomes community supported I will be taking steps to change the technology behind the main site so it can be easily updated and maintained by a group of people rather than a one individual. This means the site to live on if I'm hit by a bus or something else undesirable happens.

Once our goal is reached advertising virtually dissappear from the website for all registered users. You won't see the google ads and amazon links in the forums, no ugly T-Mobile ads, etc.**

Donate!
The donation link is http://www.weeklydavespeak.com/forums/donate.php. The page shows you how much has been donated, and how much we have left to raise. Please be aware that the donations bar updates once Paypal has verified the transaction, so you may not see your donation right away.

Finally, I have been relunctant to accept donations for the site up to this point because I've done my best to cover the costs of the site using advertising. However, there have been donations previously and I would like to acknowledge those who have done that now. Thank you.

rob

ps. I kicked in the first $99. Go get 'em.

*In actuality there were 2381 active users in the past 30 days, but 1032 of them are new board members. While we hope that they donate too, they don't constitute the 'old guard' of WDS users.

**We reserve the right under certain situations to show ads for strategic partners. I.E. WBCN's Cali asked for a promotion once, The company behind Bonnaroo (Superfly) has been good to us, etc.

[djurzi]

Rob, I am happy to help. I love WDS and all the people here. My donation has been made.

Chris.

[2stepnancie]

I'm in, like Chris said WDS is great and I am more than happy to help

[CrazyEazy]

Mine is in.. So like i have stock now in wds? =)

[reesekelly]

i don't think i could live without this place. i'm definitely throwng some money down today. thanks for keeping this running guys.

[Jason]

Live Trax CD $20, roughly 15 songs = $1.33 each song

Ask yourself, "How many songs have I downloaded from WDS in the last year?" Now do the math.

Answers will vary, but I can bet you it will equal more than the 5 or 10 bucks Rob is asking of the boards.

Please donate.

[blynn03]

I'm not what you call "a member of the old guard" or whatever...but I love this place and my donation has just been made! Thanks for all your works guys!

[wired]

done. thanks for all you do, rob!

[Charles]

Signed, sealed and delivered.

and A big THANK YOU to Rob for being sooo generous in the first place and starting up this cool site!

[DRPearson]

Compared to the money already spent on plane tickets, and tickets for 10 shows this summer... This is a small drop in the bucket... Thanks for everything