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Deleted member 1609
I have seen some very small websites pull in quite a bit of revenue in donations. It all depends on the niche of your site and how dedicated and engaged your community is. It helps to have specific purposes for donations. For example, you could take donations so that your forum can change to a paid software package or a dedicated server. If members know that their donations will be invested directly into the forum, then they will probably be more inclined to donate. 🙂
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Deleted member 29704
It's worth having them, but they don't always work.
I earn more from advertisements
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Deleted member 29704
Exactly, so advertisements and a donation button is a good idea, but there's no guarantees you'll get anything from donation buttons.
I've seen it work on small (that have had a tight nit community) and large sites/forum alike. You may want to try to switch up what you're doing.. i.e the placement of the donate button or banner, size, color/design, text, etc. I've seen it work well where sites have had a donation page with a little blurb about the sites history and where the donations go to, as people like to see what their money will be used for. I think it depends more on if members feel compelled to donate versus size of forum, although that does play a factor as more members= potentially more participation in donations.
Shannon Apple
Resident
It works on established communities, but not on new sites. A small tight knit community will want to contribute to what they love, but you have to have recurring members for that to happen. It worked for us before we set up as Sakuga City because the community wanted us to build a new forum away from the people who bought the old one and let people into the server that they didn't even know. Stolen info and hacking ensued. We're not a for profit business, so that makes a huge difference. We still have most of the money raised, so won't be taking donations again for quite a time. We post a financial report every month so that people know what we are doing with the fund, and how much money is left. Transparency is important if you are genuinely taking donations to pay for the upkeep of a community.
You have to have a good reason for the donations, not because it's an extra way to bring in revenue for your pocket. People see straight through that BS where a site is obviously making more than enough money already. If you take donations from people, you absolutely have to give back something. For example: If your site has ads, then those people who donate should have ad-free browsing for contributing to keeping your forum up and running.
You have to have a good reason for the donations, not because it's an extra way to bring in revenue for your pocket. People see straight through that BS where a site is obviously making more than enough money already. If you take donations from people, you absolutely have to give back something. For example: If your site has ads, then those people who donate should have ad-free browsing for contributing to keeping your forum up and running.
I have a smaller community here http://www.triumphtalk.com/ that runs on donations and this covers my running cost and at times I might have a bit over for development of the forum. However with that said on my second forum here http://yaketys.com/ is not doing that great on donations, so when it comes to the end of the year when the hosting and other bills are due who know what might happen?
Will you pay out of pocket or close it?
I suppose I will end up paying out of my pocket as so much work goes into getting a forum up and running.
It almost never works on new forums in my experience. Not only that, but it kind of rubs me the wrong way sometimes to see donation access very early on when there's very little reason to try and gain financial support for a board that barely even gets 20 active members online at a time.
The only time my forum had a donation button is when it had a decent amount of active members in its third or fourth year. Even then donating gave the patron at least some recognition; you know the usual dig a special ranking tier based off accrued donation amount. My members worked on it like a piggy bank to get the next higher rank available for them. It only worked because it's an already established community and had it been fresh the response would've been vastly different and negative.
In my experience some people really do donate just to have that special flair attached to their names—but they wouldn't unless they're getting something in return with acknowledgement from an established community being among the most important.
The only time my forum had a donation button is when it had a decent amount of active members in its third or fourth year. Even then donating gave the patron at least some recognition; you know the usual dig a special ranking tier based off accrued donation amount. My members worked on it like a piggy bank to get the next higher rank available for them. It only worked because it's an already established community and had it been fresh the response would've been vastly different and negative.
In my experience some people really do donate just to have that special flair attached to their names—but they wouldn't unless they're getting something in return with acknowledgement from an established community being among the most important.
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Deleted member 17779
The only thing I hate about people asking to donate on their forum is when they have some kind of pop up that hits you very early on or as soon as you first go to their site. That really bugs me. I want to see the community first before I decide I want to contribute anything. But yeah, that always bugs me when a site asks you up front for a donation before you can even see the site.
I think most people will want to contribute to sites that have been around a while as it shows that they owner is really dedicated to their site. It would be hard for new sites to get any kind of help or donations.
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Deleted member 29780
Yeah same with me! I also don't like when it's noticeable. If it's just off to the side with no flashy colours then I'll like it but when it's all flashing it will just push me away.
Shannon Apple
Resident
Not only that, but people actually need to be part of something before they will donate. I have donated once or twice to sites that I invested a lot of time into.
Last forum of ours cost 1200 dollars a year to run before idiots bought it and sank it. I can totally understand why the previous owner sold it off. It cost more than it made. He did sell us as it's active staff too, the bastard hahaha. I absolutely do understand the need for a donation button, but some people think they're entitled to it and actually don't want to do any work. Forums take a lot of work to get off the ground. When you have a good admin team, users will see that and stick around, and THEN they will consider helping you to take care of it. If you've been around for a couple of years and you haven't really put much effort into it, it will be apparent.
This is around the same cost I am looking at with both my forums so without donations it is a given that it becomes very hard for one person to maintain these costs.
Forces of Steel
Resident
Haha! There's no money in it anymore. I run forums purely as a hobby, and nothing else. I might've anticipated a few donations in the past, but most Web hosting isn't that expensive these days. Just lay off the booze for a while and pay strangers to post.
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