Raising funds - how should we?

Winny_Pooh

thomasross20 said:

I remember intermusic awesome, then it became MusicRadar with associated sponsors and that was pants, sorry to say.

How about this idea: we call it Anderson's Fretboard and instead of charging we use a foolproof method to verify that forum members watched an entire lee and chappers video before they can login

http://i.imgur.com/RIHGK8r.jpg

Handsome_Chris

Winny_Pooh said:

thomasross20 said:

I remember intermusic awesome, then it became MusicRadar with associated sponsors and that was pants, sorry to say.

How about this idea: we call it Anderson's Fretboard and instead of charging we use a foolproof method to verify that forum members watched an entire lee and chappers video before they can login

http://i.imgur.com/RIHGK8r.jpg

And this sort of unhelpful thing is why we do not have that juicy deal with Anderson's that @digitalscream nearly got for us.

Handsome_Chris

Sporky said:

Maybe there could be fines for making logical fallacies.

@Sporky , have you actually seen some of the half-arsed opinions trying to be played as facts on here?

Tony would end up having to get an accountant to deal with all the money that can't be spent fast enough.  

stickyfiddle

I haven't read every comment, but has the TDPRI model been mentioned? 

http://www.tdpri.com

They have links to a handful of relevant partners on the home screen, which aren't regular banner ads as my blocker doesn't block them (i don't have it whitelisted). Every year they run a big sweepstake raffle thing, the prizes for which I'm  assuming are often donated by the partners, possible in lieu of direct payment for the ads. I'm not sure how they structure it payment-wise, but could be worth looking at.

They're currently showing 120k members, but I don't know how active most of those are, as obviously that forum has been going for 10+ years

Teetonetal

Haven't read through, but to continue in its current state what is the shortfall in funds?

Chalky

TTony said:

More interesting comment.

I've always tried to raise funds by offering something (t-shirts, mugs, calendars) in return.  Rather than just saying "give us your money".  Interesting number of people saying that they didn't want a calendar, so didn't pay/donate (which was slightly missing the point).  Some donated anyway, recognising that the calendar sale was actually a fund-raising in disguise.

As I said on the original thread, selling £600-worth of calendars was much harder work then selling £10,000 worth of guitars.

We've run raffles for donated prizes before (ThorpyFx being a generous donor), and even that has been a hard sell to get the donations in.

Putting it another way, raising £100 in donations probably costs >£200 of my time.



And it's usually the same people who support these efforts.  I'd guess that 50 members (out of 7,500) have contributed 90% of the funds we've ever raised.  That doesn't sit well with my idea of "fairness".

Oh dear. Please don't think you can social-engineer your customers into adopting your egalitarian values. That way lies madness. And failure. Who wants to be lectured by a website?

Your decision is the usual one - adverts or customer restriction.  Some folks view this as adverts or customer paying, but the vast majority of your customers will not want to pay, so to them they just see it as restriction of what they can do on here.  The only way to influence their purchasing decision is to overcome the negative reaction to the restrictions.  Sense of community won't work on the majority who are new or occasional browsers with a can't pay/won't pay attitude. So you get stuck with a small cadre of regulars who pay for the place, and may come to dominate it over time.

Introduce adverts if you need money. The anti-advert stance is primarily from the modmins, not the punters. Customers are very used to adverts and its not like they refuse to use sites with adverts.

Edit: If you are determined to monetise this site then you need to pay attention to the behaviours of the 7,450 customers, not the 50 regulars. Harsh but true.

richardhomer

I like the idea of a forum on-line store which someone mentioned earlier, where a percentage is paid to the forum. If you think of the 'consumables' guitarists use (strings, picks, valves, leads, etc) that could work. Possibly pick-ups and pedals too. 

I'm not suggesting the amount paid to the forum is by way of mark up to buyer - rather that the retailers take a small hit on their margin.

ToneControl

I didn't buy a calendar because I didn't want a calendar

How much do we all need to chip in? I'd rather just do a PPG, like I do to wikipedia  when they remind me

Problems with getting revenue from  classifieds are:

• I wouldn't pay to list,  since  very little stuff I have tried actually  sells compared to ebay for example
• A flat percentage would  be a bit punitive for those trading a £2k amp or guitar
• Many users don't use classified, so the cost of the  forum  would not be  funded based on use

You could construct  many  intricate schemes such as payment in proportion to posts, days logged on,  reductions for  Frets
But a suggested voluntary PPG  sounds best to me, just tell me how much it costs to run, and how many use it regularly,  and suggest a  fee

ThePrettyDamned

bigjon said:

I make an annual 'Friend Of The Forum' £20 contribution on the anniversary of the Fretboard starting on the first Saturday in August. I'd encourage others to do the same and publicise it. I prefer the approach of donating to a volunteer enterprise rather than they our paying for stuff.

I think this is more on the money than charging - charging will stunt growth. 

A fishing forum I'm a member of had free forums but paid access to classifieds and other sections. The result was an "us and them" attitude of freeloaders and paid members. If someone asked for advice, it was often "pay the fee and look in this bit". 

Ultimately, even though the style of fishing has grown exponentially, the forum has not so much and it's been a slow grow. It also has a massive banner of adverts from approved stores at the top - I click away from that site now purely because a small banner turns into a whole page of adverts very quickly. 

stickyfiddle

I suspect if any of the classifieds goes behind a paywall there may also be an increase of "I'm selling a strat - is 400 the right price?" type threads in the main forum, which are obviously no problem when they're genuine, but you don't want to have to start policing what people are allowed to talk about elsewhere. I've seen forums with all sorts of "no dealing outside the classifieds" rules which just get silly.

Neil

danny_777 said:

Colms2005 said:

A voluntary contribution paid upon a successful sale is expected on many other forums such as the UMGF. This website provides a great service to people in the U.K. and Ireland as well as continental Europe. i would perhaps stay away from a fixed percentage idea however as it might be counter productive.

On TZUK, we specifically ask for a contribution of 10% of sale proceeds to charity if you're a dealer selling on the forum.

Another TZ-er!

Actually Eddie the site owner pays for all the costs and the money raised from dealers and ordinary folk has reached around £20K for our chosen charities.

ToneControl

An observation: a  forum I used to visit  had sponsors, and the admins ending up nagging you if you posted news from a random shop somewhere that included cheap prices for brands the sponsors stocked, etc. i.e. the admins ended up  doing stakeholder management

I thought if I were setting up a forum I'd be thinking:
Is Off-topic and SC worth the trouble?
Do I want the forum to feature a lot of sales?
How much of the load/costs  is the classifieds?
How much admin time is spent on the classifieds?
I can imagine some people  would  choose to setup a  "swaps-only"  policy to avoid hassle

You'll have already decided how you feel about this stuff
So I won't try to tell you how to  run it,  just  suggest a contribution level, and  make sure any contribution-nagging disappears from my screen after payment please 

ToneControl

Not sure anyone suggested this:
Charge annual fee  for  use of PM

Lodious

ToneControl said:

I didn't buy a calendar because I didn't want a calendar

How much do we all need to chip in? I'd rather just do a PPG, like I do to wikipedia  when they remind me

Problems with getting revenue from  classifieds are:

• I wouldn't pay to list,  since  very little stuff I have tried actually  sells compared to ebay for example
• A flat percentage would  be a bit punitive for those trading a £2k amp or guitar
• Many users don't use classified, so the cost of the  forum  would not be  funded based on use

You could construct  many  intricate schemes such as payment in proportion to posts, days logged on,  reductions for  Frets
But a suggested voluntary PPG  sounds best to me, just tell me how much it costs to run, and how many use it regularly,  and suggest a  fee

I feel the same way, I made PPG payment to the calendar paypal email (mplatt1903@googlemail.com) as a donation.

Neil

Chalky said:

Introduce adverts if you need money. The anti-advert stance is primarily from the modmins, not the punters. Customers are very used to adverts and its not like they refuse to use sites with adverts.

I think this is the sensible way forward.

The only forum I use that is ad-free is totally paid for by the owner.

stratman3142

I'd be happy with a donate option. Perhaps include a donate box like the example in the link below for sws extensions.

http://www.sws-extension.org/

capo4th

£5 -10 year 6-12 month forum membership fee most people would pay its an excellent resource.
voluntary contributions never work

ToneControl

capo4th said:

£5 -10 year 6-12 month forum membership fee most people would pay its an excellent resource.
voluntary contributions never work

wikipedia is still  online

stickyfiddle

ToneControl said:

capo4th said:

£5 -10 year 6-12 month forum membership fee most people would pay its an excellent resource.
voluntary contributions never work

wikipedia is still  online

Exactly, whereas readership of The Times, or viewership F1 has gone through the floor. 

It's a good way to increase revenue, but not a good way to increase the user base and provide access.

Sporky

thomasross20 said:

I remember intermusic awesome, then it became MusicRadar with associated sponsors and that was pants, sorry to say.

The sponsorship had nothing to do with the decline. Intermusic had support and involvement from the magazines. Once it went Musicradar we had Sam (who did everything he could) and that was it - the forum was essentially abandoned. I went from just getting rid of blatant spam (knock-off handbag type) and helping people rename their threads into MR wanting me (and the other spammods) to actually moderate - something we didn't sign up for, didn't enjoy, and got constant criticism for whether we did it or not.

As I say, the sponsors had nothing to do with it.