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AU Revival: Donations
http://www.arwen-undomiel.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=21180
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Author:  Eruraina [ February 12th, 2011, 9:13 pm ]
Post subject:  AU Revival: Donations

As it has become widly known around AU, there is a major revival going on. And as most know, Arweb is going to hand over the reins to AU when we're ready for them. There are still things that need worked out. Funding being one of them.

One idea that has come to light is a donation pool. What this thread is for is to find out... How much would you be able to donate monthly? Or if you can't donate monthly, how often would you be able to donate to help keep AU up and on the web? We will have a monthly bill to keep up with, but luckily Arweb says she will continue to pay it until we ourselves are ready for that burden.

So, input please! On top of anything else THIS is the most important topic in keeping AU alive.

Or at least, I think so.

Author:  [ February 18th, 2011, 5:24 am ]
Post subject: 

This is not a poor result. :)
But what do we do with it? Could we set up an account where people can start donating already? Could we ask Arweb to be the treasurer? How do we secure well.. secure money transfers?

In short, how can we proceed with this?

Author:  Eruraina [ March 9th, 2011, 11:11 pm ]
Post subject: 

Can everyone who has voted please pm me what they had picked?

Author:  Johnny's Fan [ May 11th, 2011, 4:57 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: AU Revival: Donations

I think we should should press on with getting some kind of donation button going on the main site. Already there has been one person on the tabgoard who has stated that she would be willing to donate to help pay for a tagboard worthy of AU.... I think we might be surprised how many people using AU and passing through would be happy to donate a dollar or even 50c.

Until we get a button, we'll never truly know on average how much will be donated.

Author:  [ May 11th, 2011, 5:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: AU Revival: Donations

True, and I wanted to post about it too, it might be worth a try. Especially now, when people can actually see physical changes and updates on the main site.

Does anyone know exactly how a donation would work.. like does it cost anything to set up (I guess because there's got to be a reliable system like PayPal or something to run it?)
What kind of management does it take? Would all the money just flow into Arweb's account and one day we'd be like 'oh, where's the beloved Arwebs?' and we'd realise she'd run off to Mexico with the money. :teehee:

And how does it work with the donations? Do people need to set up an account or would they pay with credit card and would that be a reliable system?

Sorry, for the many questions. I think donations is a great idea but I've never seen it before on a privately owned website so I need to be enlightened on the concept. :P

Author:  Johnny's Fan [ May 11th, 2011, 5:41 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: AU Revival: Donations

I've seen it work on private sites. Paypal is the best. It's owned by eBay I believe, is the method used on eBay to make payments, and we have a paypal account as well so I can say out of my own experience it is a very easy way to pay for stuff. All it requires is bank account and hey presto.

Paypal is free to join and sign up. I only know of few charges. There are charges for a seller on eBay when a buyer chooses to pay with Paypal but how that works with a donation button I'm not sure - easy to find out though, and also charges to put the money in a bank (or you can choose to keep the money in the paypal account and use it when you purchase things with paypal - perhaps a tagboard? A lot of places accept paypal. The charges though, we're talking pence and sometimes a pound but it's mininal for the excellent and secure service.

People would need a paypal account to pay with paypal - but anyone who is on eBay knows you need an account for eBay ... so .. I guess a lot of people have an account? And it is easy to sign up for.

Well as I said to you Ea... if people are really worried about someone running off with the money, you choose someone who has met a lot of AU'ers, whose current location is known by someone, who has facebook and MSN and basically could be hunted down andf tickled to reveal where the money is. :yes:

Author:  [ May 12th, 2011, 3:00 am ]
Post subject:  Re: AU Revival: Donations

I don't have a Paypal account :P (I'm familiar with the system though and I'd trust it) - saves me a lot of money on eBay methinks! ;) so I'd have to sign up to make a donation... Yeah, I'm just trying to think of pros and cons, not shooting the idea down. I'm all for trying to set it up and then we can see if it's going to work. :)

I think having Arweb to run the account would probably be the best but if she's not interested in doing it I'm perfectly fine with appointing someone to be the treasurer. It would be just another job on the Revival and we're probably not getting enough money for anyone to live comfortably in Mexico... not yet! :teehee:

Author:  Seren [ May 12th, 2011, 3:34 am ]
Post subject:  Re: AU Revival: Donations

I'm up for making an annual donation. I already have several direct debits set up and I don't really want to have to factor in another one (my finances are in a mess) but I could do a yearly donation of $20 to $30 which works out as about $1.50 to $2.50 a month.

I would do more but I have some months when I have less than £10 a week to live off so I can't pledge a monthly amount, sorry. It's easier to do a one off payment as it's easier to factor into my finances...

EDIT: I'm a paypal girl as well. The only way I pay for things on the internet (apart from amazon) is by paypal.

Author:  Johnny's Fan [ May 14th, 2011, 11:09 am ]
Post subject:  Re: AU Revival: Donations

Yeah, Paypal is such an easy option isn't it?

I did some more reading about it, and I found the page about how to get logos onto a website

https://www.paypal.com/helpcenter/main. ... isSrch=Yes

So it will be very simple to get this thing started. Also it might be an idea under the button to have some text briefly explaining why the button is there. I'm not sure also, if we wanted a $20 tagboard if it should say, donations for the moment would be going towards the tagboard..... I'm not entirely sure you see if when paying someone could say "for the site" or "for the tagboard".... I'm pretty sure they could but I think we'd need some instructions for the paypal account, and we wouldn't want a ton of text under it on the main page.... it really need it's own page, but we'd still want the button on the main site... maybe a paypal button that links to the paypal-AU page that gives all the nice juicy details.

OK, I'm done rambling. :P

Author:  [ May 14th, 2011, 11:25 am ]
Post subject:  Re: AU Revival: Donations

Ooh, neat! :)

So if I get this right. We set up an A-U Paypal account, put the button on the main page somewhere visible and when people click it, it takes them to the A-U Paypal account..site..thing..where-you-can-be-ripped-of-all-your-money?

If that's the case, I think it would probably be sufficient to have a Paypal button on the main site with a short text like "Click here if you want to make a donation to the site". And then we could explain what it was and how to do it and what it would be great for etc. on the A-U Paypal site.. No need to link to another sub-side on A-U, no? Except, we could explain it under the general sub-side "About A-U" or "Site" or whatever we're calling it.. yes? :teehee:

Author:  Johnny's Fan [ May 14th, 2011, 11:37 am ]
Post subject:  Re: AU Revival: Donations

Well we can only try and see. We could have under the button. Click to make donation to AU. See HERE for more details. The HERE could be the About the site page we already have, and make the first paragraph about the donation scheme.

BUT if we try and set up an AU paypal account and it allows us somewhere to have a few lines about what this is for, that is even better. :-)

Author:  [ May 15th, 2011, 5:04 am ]
Post subject:  Re: AU Revival: Donations

Yeah, I see what you mean.
Maybe we should stalk other sites to see how they do it?

Could you try to link to your Paypal account as a kind of a test to try it out or should we just go ahead and create an A-U account? I mean.. it's gotta be linked to a credit/debit card.. bank account or something, right?

Author:  [ June 3rd, 2011, 5:44 am ]
Post subject:  Re: AU Revival: Donations

Just found this on the Council-of-Elrond forums:
http://www.council-of-elrond.com/monetary.html

Various ways of making monetary donations to the site.

Author:  Arwen the webmaster [ June 5th, 2011, 2:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: AU Revival: Donations

Eä wrote:
Would all the money just flow into Arweb's account and one day we'd be like 'oh, where's the beloved Arwebs?' and we'd realise she'd run off to Mexico with the money. :teehee:


:pirate:

Yep, you know me... :-P

I have no problem with the money flowing into someone else's bank account if that's what works best, especially if that person is in charge of paying for the tag etc. But if I'm going to continue paying for the server and chat room, and donations start to cover more than just tag fees, we'd need to work out a way of getting that sorted. As I said at the beginning of the revival, I'm okay with continuing to pay for stuff for now, but as more and more people get involved in the revival (and as site traffic hopefully starts to pick up again), I'd really like to share the load eventually. Not sure the best way of making this all work, though.

Author:  Johnny's Fan [ June 16th, 2011, 6:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: AU Revival: Donations

I really think until we give the donations button a trial, we won't know what we can expect in terms of how much money we will be getting to cover things and how that money will be spent if/when any is donated.

If we have a button the main site that everyone uses (be it forum members, visitors etc) that will make it easier as the money will be going to the same place (I'm not sure if earlier on there wasn't mention of members only donating which is why I'm mentioning the above).

Paypal is trustworthy and a lot of people have it. I personally, can't trial it as it's not my account, it's my brothers, but I'm happy to help whoever we choose to be the Banker (*hits self for the deal or no deal reference*) to get this set up. Even if we try it just for one month to see a) how easy people find it and b) how much we get, that is the first hurdle done with no?

Perhaps for this trial period Arwen could handle any funds that come in, and then when we see the success/failure of it, that's when we think.... "hmm....well these donations cover this years forum/site.... should we set the rest of the donations aside for next years... or should be splash out on a tag?...." and that's when someone else can step up, and relieve Arwen of having to deal with money stuff. <<< Those things we can only see about when the lolly, dough and other monetary terms, roll in.

Author:  [ June 17th, 2011, 5:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: AU Revival: Donations

So.. can we have someone set up a trial account, Arweb or someone else? Probably someone who is already familiar with PayPal. With all the traffc we seemingly get to the site I'm growing more convinced that this is something we must try out. :)

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