will adding a donation page work?

[etc]

to which kind of forum will people donate?

 

[kavin]

Communities which offer people something in return. Example, an official support Forum of a software or a Forum which is huge.

For a small Forum with a normal niche, donate button is just a placeholder.

 

[etc]

like mybb. but are donate buttons in travel forum or general discusion forum work?

 

[kavin]

Depends upon how well the forum is set and its members base.

If its a Forum with thousands of members, you will receive donations.

 

[MrJohn]

I have seen many people donate to forums with out thinking twice about it. Usually it is better if you give them special privileges for donating to the forum, then you are going to see a lot more people donating.

 

[Gizmo]

When I used to run Chat Source I had a couple donators. And CS was a chat forum.

 

[froggyboy604]

I think it depends on the members, and your relationship with your members like if they were your close offline, and online friends they might be more likely to donate.

If you offer a useful service or social atmosphere where everyone can just hang out and chill with each other, members might donate as well to make sure that hosting and domain is paid for.

 

[froggyboy604]

I actually only made 20 dollars in donations from one of my computer help website, but it was from helping someone on another forum recover all their data off their broken computer which would of cost them hundreds or thousands of dollars if they hired a PC tech.

I wonder if displaying Advertisements decreases donations since people sometimes feel you are making a ton of money from Adsense, Adbrite, Amazon, and other Ad networks which is rarely the case unless you get 10,000 or more unique visitors a day.

 

[etc]

I get to earn about $15 to $25 month with the ads in my travel forum. I will try to take out these ads for 5 months and add a donate button. Hope to earn with my travel forum. 😀

 

[Luke]

I have gotten a $25 donation before... But it was because the person owed me the money. 😛

I don't think that counts then :lol:

 

[etc]

I actually only made 20 dollars in donations from one of my computer help website, but it was from helping someone on another forum recover all their data off their broken computer which would of cost them hundreds or thousands of dollars if they hired a PC tech.

I wonder if displaying Advertisements decreases donations since people sometimes feel you are making a ton of money from Adsense, Adbrite, Amazon, and other Ad networks which is rarely the case unless you get 10,000 or more unique visitors a day.

maybe i should also add information stating how much donation is needed for the forum, i saw some forums do it. 🙂

 

[froggyboy604]

Indeed, it is a good idea to stare how much money is needed for the forum, but you need a lot of very active and "loyal" members who want to donate. I notice it is more rare for a random stranger to donate on websites in most cases.

You can also be like Wikipedia who states in their donation page "in order to be advertising free" you need donations from members.

You can also give away digital items like E-books, or custom badges or titles to people who donated, a bigger PM message limit for the forum, and a donation members section on your forum where they can hang out,

 

[etc]

thanks for that tip froggyboy604. i should try to give away files, hope this won't be prohibited. 😀

how do i know if the pdf files i wanna share isn't illegal to share?

 

[froggyboy604]

I believe you need to write your PDF E-books yourself with Microsoft Word or OpenOffice and save it as a E-book since you can control the copyright.

You can also contact the E-books writer, and ask him if you can share it. A lot of time free e-books writers encourage you share their books, and don't care if you share them with other via file sharing, bit torrent, your own website or e-mail since a lot of free E-books are full of Affiliate links to buy products like paid e-books, software, web hosting, and online courses, so the more people who read the writers free e-book the greater chance he will make more money from affiliate sales generated from his links on the free e-book.