| Free Republic 1st Qtr 2025 Fundraising Target: $81,000 | Receipts & Pledges to-date: $12,314 | |||
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| Woo hoo!! And our first 15% is in!! Thank you all very much!! God bless. | ||||
Posted on 07/03/2009 8:54:28 AM PDT by Rodamala
Edited on 07/03/2009 9:29:33 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
I'm very new here and don't want to get perceived as a "troll", but I see the Freepathon fund drive meter every day and have a question. I don't even know if posting on the forum like this is the right way to ask.
Every quarter, there seems to be a fund drive for $80,000. I'd donate, but 1) money is tight right now, and 2) where does the $320k/year go?
I really like this place... I finally get to be around people that "get it". I feel I should contribute, but... well, see 1 & 2 above.
Rodamala
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Free Republic Monthly BudgetOnce we get our monthly donations to the point where they will cover all of our expenses, we will not need to have fundraisers.
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Free Republic is not a for profit commercial enterprise in the sense of a traditional business selling a product or service at a profit for its shareholders. We sell no product or service. We have no clients, customers or employees. We do not accept paid advertising. Free Republic is not affiliated with any political party, group, news source, government agency or anyone else.
Free Republic is not a traditional business. We are a political discussion forum and independent grassroots conservative activist group supported by donations from our readers and participants. When and if our participants decide we are no longer needed or viable, we will close down shop and go away.
Free Republic operates on an approximate $300,000 annual budget (click for breakdown) which includes equipment costs, bandwidth fees, consulting and labor costs, administrative costs, license fees, insurance, rents, communications costs, office expenses, advertising, travel, professional fees, banking and credit card fees, taxes, etc.
Free Republic is not a charity or IRS non-profit organization. We do not raise funds for charitable purposes or causes. We raise funds solely to cover our operating costs, labor, and all applicable state and federal income and payroll taxes.
There’s no free lunch.
I’m assuming that the 320k goes into power, servers, to pay Jim’s bro etc. A sizable chunk probably goes to the state of California.
Freedom is not free.
I think most of it goes toward popcorn, which JR provides free, for threads like this.
Where’s my popcorn, Jim?
Where does it go? It makes FR available to all of us for about 61 cents a minute.
If money is so tight that you can’t contribute $10 to the FReepathon, then why are you on the internet instead of working?
If I had cable TV or a daily newspaper, I’d pay for it, but I don’t. I have FR instead, and I’m willing to pay for it.
I’m not certain, I think the mods are also on salary. Then there’s the cost of bandwidth, for all the traffic FR gets it must be fairly hefty.
Sites like The Kos don’t have fund raisers ‘cause they have a sugar daddy to pay all their bills. I imagine Soros is probably paying more than $300k a year to keep the place running, which is pocket change to him.
PAY-GO? I’ll probablly donate... after I get paid for the last job I did. I need to buy groceries first because groceries aren’t free either. :)
From the FR home page:
Who runs FR?
Free Republic, LLC is a non-commercial, limited liability company founded and operated by Jim Robinson, a private citizen of Fresno California.
Free Republic is not a for profit commercial enterprise in the sense of a traditional business selling a product or service at a profit for its shareholders. We sell no product or service. We have no clients, customers or employees. We do not accept paid advertising. Free Republic is not affiliated with any political party, group, news source, government agency or anyone else.
Free Republic is not a traditional business. We are a political discussion forum and independent grassroots conservative activist group supported by donations from our readers and participants. When and if our participants decide we are no longer needed or viable, we will close down shop and go away.
Free Republic operates on an approximate $300,000 annual budget (click for breakdown) which includes equipment costs, bandwidth fees, consulting and labor costs, administrative costs, license fees, insurance, rents, communications costs, office expenses, advertising, travel, professional fees, banking and credit card fees, taxes, etc.
Free Republic is not a charity or IRS non-profit organization. We do not raise funds for charitable purposes or causes. We raise funds solely to cover our operating costs, labor, and all applicable state and federal income and payroll taxes.
If you check the profiles you will find that a lot of people have been here for years, it's like a family, it's a brotherhood. It's a 24/7 support system, shoulders to cry on, friends to pray for you, Free Republic is unique.
I guess that’s my question... what does it take to run something like this? I ancient times I was familiar with a couple “free” dialup BBSs... I was always fascinated by the technical aspects of it.
Here’s a link to the home page, which has become a little difficult to find. http://www.freerepublic.com/home.htm
Lots of info here, including a link to a general budget. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/budget I’m not sure how up to date this is, but the general outline wouldn’t change much. When you consider the massive volume of posters and posts here, and the really comprehensive mederation and troll control, it’s really pretty impressive that it can be done for so little money.
That’s a good point, Soros and other leftists are funding the left-wing sites and so you never see up-front fundraisers.
Just like leftists are funding modern art, crappy novels, academia, and a zillion front organizations, all without the pain of fundraising.
Conservatives don’t have any sugar daddies. They’ve all gone over to appeasing the terrifying Great Evil Eye in the White House. They all go to Sugar Daddy cocktail parties at the salons of the rich and celebrated and groom one another like the fat cats they are.
We have to raise our own money from the grassroots. We are poor but proud. Tiny but tenacious. Growing and grim and growling.
So cough up already.
Part of being a true conservative is believing in pulling your own weight. Money is tight for a lot of people and probably for many thousands of FReepers (there are over 300,000 registered users.)
Running a 24/7 site online is expensive (check it out for yourself), Free Republic does not accept advertising and Jim and staff have a right to earn a living, too. That’s capitalism. Paying what you can supports capitalism and the private enterprise Free Republic before the govt regulates FR out of business and you are stuck with all the “free” govt run media you can stand.
Also, Jim often posts a brief financial summary that tells where all the money goes. It was this openness about the finances that made me decide to put part of my SSDI towards the Free Republic. I’m sure an Admin Moderator can post the financial summary here.
These are just a few reasons. There are more. But paying your own way in the world, to the best of your ability, is always the best and most conservative way to go IMO. :0)
I already posted a link to the budget at #13
Thank you. It must have gone up while I was typing.
Nope - not even...
That means the physical servers (note the plural) for Freerepublic. This site is run by a handful of people.
It is David against Goliath.
The Democrats/liberals/brain washed friends of Obama/Soros probably pump $1 million a quarter into the Huffington Post in trying to come up with a site that might compete with Freeperland...
No. $80,000 a quarter is small change compared (1) to the stakes we are playing with (huge national debt, flushing the constitution down the toilet. Also, fighting the Democratic controlled Congress is not easy.
Since tomorrow is the Fourth of July, just think of the amount blood shed for this country.
I think that blood is a lot more expensive than $80,000 a quarter...
Suggestion for site improvement:
It’s really become oddly difficult to find the FR home page, which is the motherlode of basic information like this, that a lot of sane rational new arrivals would be wondering about. Going to www.freerepublic.com has automatically diverted to the main forum for a long time now. And there’s nothing there showing a clear link to “Home”. The actual link is labelled “Free Republic” in large bold letters at the top left, but that looks more like a page heading than a link. This poster Rodamala, for example, sounds like someone who would have found this information on her own, if it wasn’t hidden away like this.
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