Donations? Incentives & Motivation Discussion

[Dorith]

Michael and I just recently began discussion donations on my blog here: http://forumblogger.com/need-your-opinion/ (scroll down to the comments a bit). I think it's quite interesting what the discussion has led to so far. It's interesting that he talked about a distinct difference between respect to a donation vs. a paid subscription.



Should members be given something for donating to your site? Should they just be able to donate out of respect of what you are doing on your forum? What kinds of incentive and motivation can you give your members to actually donate on your forum?



A whole other question that came up was the very fragile balance between these supporters that donated and the regular member. If you want to really get some money from this, then you would need to offer something pretty great in return. But are you willing to let your members buy themselves to the top? What about those who just cannot donate?



I'd love to hear what you guys have to say. Feel free to reply on my blog, or here.

 

[Nebulous]

People should donate because they want to help out the site, not to get something in return.

However, rewarding their generosity with a thank-you thread and/or a special rank / rank color is a nice gesture.

 

[Dorith]

But what if you need donations to run your forum? Donations might just be a nice way to get some extra cash, but if you are in need of this cash to pay for your forum, would you still just keep it the way you mentioned Nebulous?

 

[stm]

Well if you absolutely need donations, you'd be stupid not to reward that person with something.



But I think in any situation, there's no harm in giving a custom rank title, custom username color or something else right? It doesn't cost you a cent and it'll get you more donations.



Just a good way to say thanks for giving me money when you didn't have to

 

[Nebulous]

But what if you need donations to run your forum? Donations might just be a nice way to get some extra cash, but if you are in need of this cash to pay for your forum, would you still just keep it the way you mentioned Nebulous?

Ive never seen a forum the relied on member donations so much that it would shut down if it didn't get enough of them.

 

[stm]

Ive never seen a forum the relied on member donations so much that it would shut down if it didn't get enough of them.

Exactly this.



I've seen websites that require $100 a month subscriptions

 

[Dorith]

Well if you absolutely need donations, you'd be stupid not to reward that person with something.



But I think in any situation, there's no harm in giving a custom rank title, custom username color or something else right? It doesn't cost you a cent and it'll get you more donations.



Just a good way to say thanks for giving me money when you didn't have to

Something simple like that is great. I would also personally thank them in a news announcement of some sort.

Ive never seen a forum the relied on member donations so much that it would shut down if it didn't get enough of them.

The conversation on ForumBlogger went like this

[quote name='Michael]I don’t have such a system on my forum right now, but have been toying with the notion of introducing one for the last few days. My site doesn’t generate any advertising revenue, so it’s entirely being run out of my own pocket. A few paid subscriptions would definitely go a long way towards not only helping keep the site alive (financially), but might also bolster activity (if someone pays even a small amount to show their support they are much more apt to participate and stay active). But I don’t want to implement a paid membership if there’s good reason not to do so.[/quote]



He obviously isn't running his forum solely based on this idea of donations, but he would like to be able to use it if it can generate him some money to run his forum. He's not asking to make enough to gain a profit, but maybe enough to pay for the hosting that month or something.



So when thinking about this, I think about the best possible way to get money from donations, and that would be through some sort of incentive for donating on the forum.



It's not like his forum is going to be shutdown due to this, but he is just wondering and I was curious to know what you guys here thought about it.

 

[Jazzy]

On one forum I am a memeber of if you do not pay, you cannot have a custom avatar, signature, access to their gift shop and you have annoying ads blocking half the page. I refuse to pay for such things when I can get them at another forum for free. If I want to make a donation to a forum, it should be because I want to and not because I am forced to.

 

[Dorith]

Good point Jazzy. That is something we discussed and we realized there was a very fragile line between donations and out-right paying for membership.

 

[Nebulous]

On one forum I am a memeber of if you do not pay, you cannot have a custom avatar, signature, access to their gift shop and you have annoying ads blocking half the page. I refuse to pay for such things when I can get them at another forum for free. If I want to make a donation to a forum, it should be because I want to and not because I am forced to.

I know what forum you are talking about. Regarless of the fact that you're paying to use your avatar & getting rid of half a page of ads, a lot of the people there are mean and I would not want to pay money just to comfortably associate with a bunch of dramatic a-holes.