I've been thinking of ways to create revenue from my community that I've made and one thing that has come to mind is creating a place for people to donate via the website itself.
Would you ever considering donating to a forum to help support its growth and continued up-keep?
What would you expect in return, anything? Special features?
I have used one many year ago. It's not something I would use now. I know some forums that are still using them and they had the odd few that pay. Some members like to have their name showing up in the special text as to 'stand out'. Others to gain special features from paying.
When I had the donate button, I also had a posting rank, so when the user had made a certain (the highest, say 5/10,000) posts, they would be included in this group. I did this as I wanted it for members who could not afford to pay in money but gave something else back to the forum by posting.
I don't have anything against it. I think if you have a community that can give something to the member that they may want then there's no harm in that.
Special features. Name in 'bright lights'. More PM space. It depends on what your forum is about. What can you offer?
There's no doubt that the donate button works really well for some websites. Wikipedia is the best example of that.
I've donated money to plenty of forums in the past, but I'm not sure if I'd see myself donating money to a forum now. I'd really have to be an active user on the forum, and I'm really not too active anywhere besides my own forums. Anyways, I'd definitely expect the typical perks that you see on lots of forums. A colored username, a private forum, a special rank, etc.
