How to make your donation!

[Largomad]

Well...
$8,709.37

Whoah, I love to wake up and find good news like that.

Thanks everybody for helping EN world to be alive

 

[Heretic Apostate]

When my contract is approved by the Board of Supervisors (yeah, I'm an item on the County board meeting agenda!!!! ), I'll chip in some money. I live off of credit cards in the meantime.

Hopefully, it won't take two months like it did last time. I can't survive two months!!! Luckily, at least this time, I have a temp job on the side to tide me over a bit...

 

[Wraith Form]

Some thoughts for the future.


1. I agree this should be a yearly event, or every six months. A donation drive, with specific goals in mind, set on a specific date known well in advance, would make this run smoother and be easier to handle.

2. The donation drive could be backed by d20 Products donated by various third party publishers who frequent this board. I know there are tons of people who would be willing to donate a spare product or two here and there for a good cause, and goals can be set to get such products. For example "Donate $50 and get a free copy of Four Color To Fantasy" (hypothetical example only), or "choose from one of the following products", and have larger "gifts" linked to larger donations. People could offer services in exchange for donations to EnWorld as well. I know I would be willing to offer some free legal work to small press d20 publishers who donate X amount to EnWorld, and I'm sure other professionals would be willing to offer their services as well.

3. Incorporate as a non-profit organization in the US. This one involves more work, and some costs, but in the end I think it would be worth it. That way, contributions could be tax free to US taxpayers, and could be totally above board. In addition, I've done non-profit filings before, and I'd be happy to donate some time to helping you do this, if you are interested.

4. Get Paypal and your own credit card e-commerce account up and running. I know Morrus hates paypal, and I am sure there are good reasons for this. But, it's just too useful a method of collecting payments to totally dismiss it without looking in to it one more time.

5. Have a running chat session going for the "telethon", with goals per hour, specific "gifts" for first people to donate X amount in that hour, guest speakers popping in to encourage people to donate, etc... The chat could be on the message board itself, instead of a running chat screen, or both.

6. If possible, set the monetary goals higher than just costs to run the board for a year (or six months, or whatever the time frame between donation drives). A small salary is appropriate for the person who heads this whole board, and if at all possible it would be nice to send some cash to the good folks who help run it as well (like moderators, reviewers, reporters, etc...), not to mention the desire to sponsor special events. I know that seems far fetched, in a time of crises like this one, but I really think that a well-run donation campaign could generate a lot more money for this board than even this amazing turnout would indicate.

At the risk of appearing to simper, I think these are actually quite good ideas.

 

[Eosin the Red]

I think that we basically raised 2 years of service. Wicked cool.

I hope that everyone keeps it up and Morrus can upgrade anything, fix, buy or whatever he needs to do to keep this place headache free for a year or so.

Then he can take the time and find a job without worrying that his website cost his as much as his rent.

 

[Scorpio]

A wonderful 6 hours here. This site is a hobby for some, a pasttime, a source of information, and a source of income. And folks, this is what the 'Internet' is all about.
Kudos to all.

 

[Wraith Form]

Fantastic!

I want to offer about a hundred thanks to Chris Aylott and the Space Crime Continuum; five hundred thanks to Luke Jones, and fifteen hundred thanks to Talien and the folks at RetroMUD. Plus hundreds of thanks to everyone who dug deep and gave what they could -- folks, it all adds up and we really appreciate it.

Yer welcome.

Now, I'm also out of a job and I was wondering if you could help me out with a little problem.......

 

[Selvarin]

Amazing. Bloody amazing. The apathetic cynic in me has been bowled over upon hearing of this and then seeing how well people chipped in. If I were God's right-hand man I'd vote to give all the donors an honorary halo (in your choice of neon blue, pink, purple, or pale golden).

And I'll 'ditto' Mistwell's suggestions. I keep living close to the bone (kinda like this month) but with two fund drives a year I (and others) should manage to pitch in some $$ without much fuss. I'll just consider it 'voluntary membership dues' since this has been a grand service to gamers and publishers alike. Beats a PBS pledge drive any day.

Sogni d'oro, Morrus.

 

[dpdx]

I'm with bullet points 1 (yearly), 2, and 3 of Mistwell's ideas, and abstain on bullet point 5. I spit on Paypal, have chatted maybe once, and think bullet point 6 creates a hierarchy (paid vs. unpaid denizens of this board) and a layer of complexity we don't need.

I like ENWorld just like it is, and hope my donation will first go to retiring debt, paying for at least the next year of future bandwidth, feeding the admin something other than Top Ramen or Oxo bullion, and server upgrades. After that, I don't care if Morrus feels compelled to attend MallorCon or Game Day Marseille on the community's dime, as long as that stuff is taken care of first.

Oh, and to prove I'm not a total grump, I'm extremely in favor of bullet points 1 and 2, as long as 1 is yearly (c'mon, people don't even pay taxes twice a year), and 2 includes Bad Axe products.

 

[mythusmage]

I get money on the first myself, or the workday before if the first is on the weekend or a holiday. I write to ask if it would be possible to sign up for a supporter account with a monthly payment. I can make it $10.00 a month.

I have another idea as well, but that requires some work on my part, so you'll have to wait for it.

 

[BSF]

OK, I have posted enough here. I'll stop for a while, I promise.

Again, I just want to point out how great everyone is that has been able to contribute. For those that wanted to contribute, but couldn't (for whatever reason), don't sweat it. Jump in later when you can. Keep participating in everything. I like to read your thoughts, it is what helps make this a community.

OK, I am off to bed. I'm tired and I think I'm starting to babble. Just babbling on and on...