[Theforum] fundraising again.

Fri Mar 1 19:35:21 CST 2002

--- Michele Foster <michele at wordpro.on.ca> wrote:
> I'm not really sure how to do this .. do others have
> ideas ?  Anyone want to
> create some buttons (or *adverts*) that we can place on
> the site?  (Should
> we add a ($) icon beside the three we have already?)

Yes, like I suggested for adding in the redesign, but of
course there's no reason to wait till then. I won't bother
going back over what I posted before about this. If you
didn't read it, it's at
http://lists.evolt.org/theforumarchive/Week-of-Mon-20020225/003334.html

> What about the web hosting for meo accounts ?  Is now the
> time to make a
> decision which route we want to go?  Do we want to start
> charging for this
> service?  Even a small amount would help greatly offset
> the costs.  What
> about $5/month ($60/year x 1000 members = $6,000 = 6
> months of hosting)
> [Yes, I realize we will probably lose some meo account
> members.]

If we're going to do this some things need to be thought
out first.

a) What happens to members who don't pay up?

b) What about people who only use this space for support
material for their articles, and for posts on lists. Do
they have to pay too? How do we know who's doing what with
their account?

c) Do we want to offer extra incentive to people to pay for
their weo? IE raffling a piece of software (say ps 7)
amongst the people who paid up. (Could we have another
raffle thing for the donation day, also?)

d) What happens to people who are unable to pay up? (This
one strikes particularly close to him, since my age < 18
means no credit card). What about those who are out of
work?

e) MEO has been a sort of reward to people for contributing
to evolt. Paying is one way of contributing - but would
people who've paid consider that that's all they need to
do? Also, would meo be open to anyone who pays, or would
the old rules for signing up still apply?

f) Even though the charge is small, do we want to offer
other things (such as dns) to make the deal sweeter? Or say
that members who contribute over a certain amount get the
extras such as dns?

> Personally, I don't like the idea of charging for content
> .. and I'm not
> sure how we could charge a membership fee... i.e.
> membership for what?
> access to weo?  sign up on thelist (what happens to the
> archives?) ... etc.

No, no no! We do not want to charge for membership, or
access to the basic services. IMO, this will lead to a
decline of evolt. Why? As time goes on, more and more
people move off to do other things. Members who are already
signed up will probably for the most part pay a reasonable
fee. People who are redirected to the site, will not be
willing to pay a fee until they know what the sites like.
If when I'd first been directed here, I'd had to pay for
content, I would never have become a member of the
community. I suspect most people would be the same.
Therefore, as people moved on, there would be less and less
evolters until it was forced to shut down. Or cut having to
pay, in which case we'd be right back where we are now.

Let people see why it's such a great community and then
charge for premium services, if that's necessary. Once
again, I prefer that we use donations for services. People
can try them out. They can pay what they think it's worth
ot them, if they can afford it. And the easier you make it
to donate, the more people will. Also, if evolt becomes a
nfp, then people will even benefit back from donations.

One other thing... I mentioned prizes raffled off to
donaters before - does anyone think we could get a company
such as Adobe or Macromedia to donate software for this
purpose? Or would we have to pay for it? Do we want to
offer the merchandise stuff as prizes, perhaps?

Also, do we want to make a store or merchandise.e.o ? It'd
be great to have a one off merchandise drive thing, where
everyone can get evolt gear, such as calendars or caps or
those <body> shirts or whatever - but what about if new
people who sign up want that stuff? What would be the
overhead of keeping something like this running constantly?
Would it be worth it, or would we be better off haing a
once a year thing?

Sorry for such a long post, that may be seen as obstructive
to the ideas for profit, but I really think we need to be
clearly aware of all the remifications of what we do before
we do it.

Lach

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