[theforum] fundraising idea

[Paul Cowan]

Hi all,

Not sure if this is the right forum for such discussion, but as theforum is 
open and finance etc. groups aren't, here I go.

I just received some (offline) marketing guff for 
<http://www.t-refer.com/>, and it seems to me that it might be something 
evolt should investigate as a fundraising idea.

Basically, it's just an affiliate-type program for thawte's SSL 
certificates. Nothing too flashy -- the base rate is 5%, stepping up to 15% 
at 30+ certs sold/month, but given that thawte's 128-bit certs are about 
$500US, then there's the potential to kick the funds along a little.

Seems particularly appropriate to me because I would imagine a very high 
number of, e.g., thelist subscribers would be buying SSL certs from thawte 
anyway: if they are, may as well get them to enter a referral code (or 
whatever) and get some folding stuff out of them.

Just a thought, anyway.

Cheers,

Paul

PS: At the moment, thelist footer is a generic 'help support evolt' link, 
which is great. However, given there are a few more specific options for 
helping -- cafe press store, amazon purchases, networth hosting, etc., 
perhaps evolt might be better served by making the message more specific? 
Perhaps if one week it said:
	Need to buy some tech books? Support evolt at the same time!
	http://amazon.com/whatever/referrer/code
and then the next week
	Need an SSL certificate? You can help evolt without even trying!
	http://thawte.com/something/whatever/blah/
Would be more likely to remind people for that specific service -- I mean, 
last time I bought an amazon book, I didn't even think of using the evolt 
referrer, but if it was at the bottom of every thelist email (or 1/4 of 
them, or whatever), I might have.