Can we get 49 people to contribute $1 a month by standing order to an account in jamalrob's name? I'd be happy to be one of the 49.

Alternatively we could get 24.5 people to contribute $2 per month.

Or, to stay in whole numbers, we could have a Board of The Seven who each contribute $7 a month and have special status.

What is needed is a reasonably steady income that over time meets, but does not greatly exceed, the cost of operation. Too much money at one time presents an odd problem. One might be a year ahead in income, but if one stops seeking donations, eventually the cash will be gone and people will be out of the habit of thinking about donating.

While I would rather not make monthly donations of $1 or $2 through a credit card, numerous smaller donations would add up to a more regular income than a few big donations. On the other hand, maybe not. Do small, two-bit donations require a disproportionate amount of time to process and record?

Here are some examples of banner lines that might help:

$12 donations and a banner "This week is brought to you by..." $50 donations, and "This month is brought to you by...

"Philosophy is free but space on this server costs $50 a month!"
"Had a free meal from your favorite restaurant recently? This month's serving cost $50."
"Talk is cheap but servers cost $50 a month."
"For $50 your pearls of wisdom will be preserved for your posteriori.
"Why spend $50 on a server when we could just write all this stuff on bathroom walls and toilet stalls?"

Pay walls generally impose limits on access; 5 free accesses per month, then blockage. That works when one is a known product and is in demand -- like the Wall Street Journal or New York Times are. It works for porn sites, too, but I don't think it would work for any philosophy site, ours or somebody else's.

Since 1 person is responsible for paying for the server, the site functionally if not in fact "belongs" to that person. If the site can and will be shut down if there is not enough money to pay for it, the site more functionally and in fact belongs to the donors. There is a stronger incentive to support the site if the donors own it, and will lose it if and when they do not support it.

I do think it is important to establish and maintain the principle that the site exists on the basis of regular, ongoing support. (On the other hand, "vaguely defined group ownership" can be problematic too.) Supposing Jamalrob gets run over by an ox cart and is no longer able to process donations and send checks. The site fizzles. Shoe string operations in the US sometimes incorporate as what are known as 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations. They are tax exempt and are governed (or advised, depending) by a community board. The boards are self-appointing after incorporation or they can be elected.

Good suggestions and much appreciated. To be honest, what would help as much as anything else at the moment would be to get the word out through social media that we exist. Until we gain more visibility on search engines, expanding our member base at a reasonable rate is a major challenge.

In the meantime, many thanks to all of you who have donated your hard earned cash and/or your time, energy and intellect. You are making the site what it is

https://www.facebook.com/thephilosophyforum/
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Cost of site to run: $49/month
Subscriptions received: $247 — jamalrob

What is needed is a reasonably steady income that over time meets, but does not greatly exceed, the cost of operation. Too much money at one time presents an odd problem. One might be a year ahead in income, but if one stops seeking donations, eventually the cash will be gone and people will be out of the habit of thinking about donating. — Bitter Crank

Maybe any monies beyond 3 months worth of site costs go to targeted advertising?

Also, where'd the subscribe button go? Is there a way people could enter an amount greater than the 1 month or 6 month subscription cost?

Which Facebook offers a $5.00 fee to promote. 8-)

Maybe any monies beyond 3 months worth of site costs go to targeted advertising? — ProbablyTrue

That might be a possibility, but we really don't have much money to spare for that sort of thing. Anyhow, all help in finding new members is much appreciated.

Also, where'd the subscribe button go? Is there a way people could enter an amount greater than the 1 month or 6 month subscription cost? — ProbablyTrue

Anyone who wants to donate more can PM @jamalrob and he should be able to arrange something. Cheers.

Time for a financial report.

Cost of site to run: $49/month
Current PayPal balance: $108

Subscriptions for $5/month: 3
Subscriptions for $10/quarter: 4

A couple of members made some generous one-off payments too, and failing that I've put the required money in myself.

In the beginning, PayPal recurring payments were not integrated into PlushForums and subscribing was just a matter of making a one-off payment, though it did set those members to Subscriber status within TPF. I think if recurring payments had been integrated in the beginning, we would have more active subscriptions. I'm hoping some of those people who "subscribed" in the beginning, but whose subscriptions are now inactive because of the upgrade, will let me know so they can subscribe again (thank you to those who've done that).

http://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/367/subscribe-to-tpf

At some point in the future we'll probably have to move to the next pricing plan, which is $75/month. The main thing causing the move will probably be storage, uploaded files taking up most of that, but I can't seem to find the storage usage screen in the admin dashboard that they added a few months ago. Maybe they removed it again. We can delete unused files if we want to, but I want to avoid that (nothing is really unused unless it's related to deleted posts). Anyway, I'll find out how close we are to our limit and update this post.

The cost of the articles site is $29/year. When it comes time to renew it, I'll probably do so, but my single article is beginning to look very lonely.