Posted on 05/13/2008 7:35:14 AM PDT by don-o
This thread is for the purpose of discussion regarding fundraising efforts. Free Republic is sustained by voluntary contributions. There is no paid advertising and, hence, no pop up or banner ads. We all know, and hopefully, appreciate this.
We all also know of the quarterly fund raising campaign, a.k.a. the Freepathon. Love ‘em or hate ‘em - this is how a great deal of the money is obtained to pay expenses. Some of us know of the monthly donor option. We can elect to have an automatic deduction made from a credit card account.
There have been some private discussions about whether the discussion I propose is even necessary. Others, like myself think a pro-active approach to future fund raising is worth thinking and talking about. What can be done to generate the needed money that is not being done now?
Jim Robinson, of course, has the say-so on how it’s done. I just want to get some focused discussion.
Please share your thoughts and ideas. Ping it widely. Thanks
ping
I know there are others who might be interested in the topic. Please ping.
forgot to ping The Boss!
It seems we’ve lost some contributors in the flame wars. Many of the people who helped finish off the freepathons quicker are no longer with us, and we’re left with few contributors and many FReeloaders :(
Not sure what the options are to correct this, but I have to say I’m getting tired of seeing those who cannot get along because of different opinions getting the other person banned because of it. It’s happened to many of my friends...and I miss their input here.
On the same hand, contributing to FR doesn’t make one above the posting rules. I remember several (former) posters from last year who felt that way.
I don’t know how well Free Republic gear would sell (t-shirts, coffee mugs, bumper stickers), but that’s one idea. I don’t like the idea of ads, but that’s another.
A lot of newer FReepers (say less than 5 years) really don’t have a clue about the financial and legal underpinnings of FR. They don’t understand why we can’t have advertising, or why we can’t charge a fee for posting privileges, etc. They also don’t know about the big legal bills of the past, ongoing legal bills for dealing with nuisance threats and suits, or even have a picture of the operating budget. If each of those automated “Please donate” posts that appear on every thread during a FReepathon contained a link to a good summary of this info, I think that would help a lot. It also would help to include a summary of the number of donors vs. number of active posters.
I saw a number of posts during the last FReepathon asking things like “Why don’t we just sell ads?”, and needing somebody to spell it all out for them individually (an awfully inefficient process), and these weren’t from people who’d just joined in the past few months. And I’m sure many more just thought this sort of thing to themselves, and never asked, and so never understood, and didn’t see the need to donate.
ping to revived thread
I like the idea. Of course, we can expect questioning of the line items. Personally, I am not that interested.
I am interested in seeing the expenses covered and paying my part of them.
That is why I started the
Perhaps a statement to the effect of: Free Republic is entirely supported by member donations. As such, we run no advertising, and bow to no outside control.
I’ve thought a lot about having some sort of indication that a poster is a donor, and in the long run, it’d lead to some expression of superiority. We see what kind of expression can be based upon sign-on date alone. Don’t wanna feed that alligator.
Dunno about hats and shirts, what with the current non-profit status either.
I do appreciate that you’re thinking about these things though. Somewhere down the road, they can become quite useful...
Freeper stuff is here. Buy to your hearts content.
http://0cents.chainreactionweb.com/index.php?cPath=18&osCsid=f5d646b151c601661e56db33fac082e9
FReeper Stuff is back!
Buy gifts for family and friends, show off your FR items to your liberal office mates, or attend a freep in the hottest FRashion. BBQ the Libs (metaphorically, of course) in your Free Republic apron!
Click the Pajama Patrol Badge to view FReeper Stuff!
(FReeper Stuff is an independent and separate organization and is not owned or controlled by Free Republic, LLC)
Donate and you get a nifty E-mail address. (Shhh! it’s secret)
Nobody knows about this.
Are there stipulations for the Nifty E-mail address?
IE: Monthly Donor or Dollar-A-Day Donor?
Can we have a bar with a goal for monthly donor dollars? Help stamp out FReepathons ..... become a Monthly Donor?
Direct all of the receipts from the next Freepathon to scratch-off lottery tickets.
Jim is due some good luck.
A prize of, say, $500,000 a year for life would end Freepathons forever, and Jim could use the extra for a turbocharged wheelchair.
Just thinkin’...
Thanks for the ping. I just got home a few minutes ago. Let me get some stuff taken care of around here and I’ll be back.
I also have thought about giving continuing recognition to donors. But, I’m sure that would be a pain to manage. And, we already have that during the Freepathons for the Dollar a Day and the Monthly Donors lists.
There is a “donate” link always visible, though it becomes part of the landscape and is easily ignored. I think for a graphic to have any effect at all, it has to be pretty garish and maybe we don’t want that either.
I’ve always thought that FR was the cleanest and classiest of any discussion forum on the net. Truth be told, I am not all that jazzed about the recent changes. But, that’s another thread.
How about this, if it is possible? Could we have a random “commercial post” display in the threads? It would be akin to the posts that automatically begin each thread during Freepathons. But, this one could be content heavy, noting that we are funded by voluntary contributions, accept no advertising, etc....
And have links to the other appropriate pages, including donation page.
Can such a thing be made to post automatically at a set time interval? If it can’t be done automatically, would there be enough volunteers to agree to post it on an agreed schedule? I’m not talking about every thread or once an hour, even. Just some reasonable amount of putting the story out there where people will come across it.
And that’s enough out of me (for now.)
When you send a donation to FR there's a form you fill in. One of the blanks is for your "real" email address.
FR then gives you an email address but it's not a real email account. It simply forwards or "redirects" to your "real" email address.
In your case the FR email would be: JustAmy@freerepublic.com.
Any email sent via the FR address should be forwarded to your "real" email account and show up in your email in box.
John included this feature when he was rewriting the software way back in 2001/2002. Thereabouts. It can be very handy at times.
Please feel free to correct me if I didn't get it right.
Thank you.
Thanks for explaining it.
Does everyone who donates get an FR email address?
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