Profit Support the forum

[Shawn Gossman]

Have you ever asked members to support your forum, and it actually worked?

You know, like donate to help the forum for the hosting and server costs.

Do you think the right kind of community can fully keep the forum afloat?

 

[Larry]

I have in the past for different projects and normally if you look too desperate people won't support it. That being said I sounded too desperate when a user called me out a long time ago. I simply just said "fair" and took down the donation pool.

Right now, my current board I do not really push for it, its more of in the background then anything. It is shown on our news and announcements but its 100% optional. It's good to have though because hosting and software licenses is expensive! You have to have an idea going in, are you doing this for pure hobbies or we talking business here? I'm for the latter. My friends and I are all starting it together but at the moment they are dealing with a personal issue so I'm left to go solo for a minute.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

That being said I sounded too desperate when a user called me out a long time ago. I simply just said "fair" and took down the donation pool.

Begging is definitely not the way to go about doing it.

However, with the right copy, I feel like you can do it and be successful. Wikipedia has been doing it that way for a long time and they're still ad-free and ran mainly from donations.

But it's easy to imposter syndrome when asking for money.

However, if you don't have the money to keep a forum going, it's easy to lose it once you require more resources to be able to keep it online.

 

[Heatman]

I have seen forum owners do it from time to time and they do actually get some donations. I even remember when Admin Junkies did it to support a member back then when Cedric was the owner of the forum.

What's very important would be not to make a habit of doing it very often because it's going to look like you're taking advantage of your community members.

 

[JWeb]

I've had members offer to help out which was greatly appreciated.

I haven't asked for any donations on any forum I've managed, but I've been a member of forums that mainly ran on donations and were successful with it.

 

[Cedric]

I have seen forum owners do it from time to time and they do actually get some donations. I even remember when Admin Junkies did it to support a member back then when Cedric was the owner of the forum.

What's very important would be not to make a habit of doing it very often because it's going to look like you're taking advantage of your community members.

Good times. Nice that you remember. We were able to send 150USD that day. It may not be much but it certainly made a the difference on Christmas.

I wouldn’t ask for any donations ever other than the benefit for someone else.