[Theforum] funding options

[javier velasco]

last night i wateched/helped my wife join the Society for Conservation
Biology through their website. I was very impressed by how carefully the
forms had been designed, the copy was really helpful and every little detail
helped make the user experience nicer.

https://www.conbio.org/SCB/Information/Membership/membershipform.cfm

Why would you care?

Well, I'm really worried about how we're going to be able to fund our 'ship'
by the turn of the year. I believe our best chance for funding is to call
our members, both in practical and political terms. And I think we could
take some nice ideas from the SCB.

For example, look at the way they make a difference in the membership
(newsletter) fee according to each person's situation (professiona/student)
and according to their country of origin, which makes a big diference in
what a membership fee means to the person.

The form's next page, after you enter all your commercial info, by the end
it asks you if you'd be willing to donate some extra cash to help fund a
'$less' student with his membership, with a pull down of figures right next
to the question.

I'm not saying that we should force all our members to re-join with a
membership fee, but it's that the site i saw last night was so well designed
(specially from the communication POV) that it kind of encouraged you to
donate more. I'd like to see some of that feeling in the evolt.org site, I
believe we need to ask our membership for money (not third parties) and we
need to do it in a smart way, not appear as if we were scared of asking for
funding.

I'm not sure if all this makes sense, I hope it moves some ideas and we can
turn it into some cash-inputting mechanism. I thought it'd be best sending
this to theforum, where we can later take it to particular workgroups.

thanks
javier