We need to ask for your financial support now

[ReFur]

Everyone,

 

We have not asked for your financial assistance for a very long time. AK paid out of pocket for our lastest bill because these great guys hate to ask you for funds we badly need right now. So, I will do it for them.

 

We do need your financial support. Now. Just so you will know, every penny you so generously donate goes directly to the bills required to run the site. Others on our team can tell us the details, but I am asking for anyone who can afford to make a donation to do it now.

 

I am so proud to be a part of this site. Thank you all for your support and helping keep this site advertisement free.

 

Linda

[White Fox]

Linda is of course correct here. Yes, our site is huge, having our own server now, etc. But of course that costs money.

 

We do desperately need donations now to keep our site going. We know that most people cannot give hundreds of dollars. But if a few people give ten or twenty that will soon get us another hundred dollars toward our goal.

 

So please help us out. As Linda mentions we are not like many other sites. Absolutely No donations here go into the pockets of the owner or the staff. It ALL goes to make a better web site for each and every one of you to enjoy!

 

Thanks of course to all of those who have helped through the years, through donations, work on site, or finding such marvellous information that is always available here...

 

Each and every one of you always amaze me so much with all of the help you give us.

 

White Fox

[White Fox]

For those new members to the site...

 

To donate to our site all you need to do is to send a "Message" to AKCoyote asking him for information or telling him what you would like to donate. Or, you can answer in this thread. To send him a "Message" just click where it says "0 new messages" near the top of the page.

[AKcoyote]

We have accepted donations via PayPal in the past and the donation page with a PayPal donate button at the bottom can still be found at: http://thefurden.com/fdwiki/?n=FD.TEST2

 

NOTE: As that code has not been used for several months, there is a possibility some changes might be needed to properly interface with PayPal. Please let me know if you encounter any problems attempting to make a donation.

[Guest]

Hope this works out. I am wondering if charging a fee like other sites would work. I'd be willing to pay $25 or $50 a year for this site. How many people are members? What are the costs (note: the administrators don't really have to share this)?

 

I certainly trust all those who put all their efforts into running the site (i.e. I know nobody is pocketing any of the donations).

 

Thanks for ALL YOUR EFFORTS!

 

JA

 

PS I just donated.

 

PPSS I am probably getting my fur next week or the week after. I can't wait!

[White Fox]

FurlessinCA, there are more or less two main problems with the yearly donations idea.

 

The first is that it is hard to know who the members are. We have members who join, and almost never return. We have members who "Lurk" but never post. Our posting membership is almost nil in comparison to the actual member list. So, it is just so very hard to define who would be involved with something like that.

 

The second concern is that we know that there are people who come to our site who could not afford even that much. We actually have members who use a Library to get to our site because they not only do not have a computer, but they don't even have a real house to put it in. We do have members who "Live on the street".

 

Thus, it is very, very hard to work any sort of fee. However, at this time we are not adverse to ANY ideas. Maybe if we think more on your idea we can figure out a way to make that actually work or modify it a bit somehow.

 

Thanks for the suggestion!

 

White Fox.

 

***By the way Furless. There is one special reason that I can guarantee you even more than you had ever thought, that NO funds will go for anything here but running this site. Both AKCoyote and I gave large amounts as members to a site like this one once to allow the owner to purchase more web space. And NO web space was ever purchased. The money just went into the owner's pockets. When I became admin of this site along with FrBrGr and AK, I vowed to NEVER let that happen to ANYONE in any way on this site. A promise that I will keep forever!

[Guest]

WF:

 

Thanks for your response. Also know that I know almost nothing about websites. But perhaps a model like Brandy UK uses. Threre is very limited access to some pictures/other stuff, but one has to pay for complete access.

 

Admittedly this would be exclusionary with regard to some folks who can't afford a computer or have limited means. But there are certainly greater concerns for those folks (note: I'm NOT suggesting we discrimminate, I just remember when I was a grad student I just had different priorities). I'm just thinking out loud here.

 

If we (you) did solicit advertising, I would guess that the primary focus would be fur stores. MinkgLove might be interested, but I would wonder what would their motivation be to advertise on this site. Some of the content on this site might be considered fringe by mainstream. The fact that I like fur and have a fur jacket ellicits a "you're a perv" from my wife (though that's a whole separate issue). The point is, would "mainstream business people want to advertise here? Again, I am speaking as someone who doesn't completely understand advertising and so forth.

 

Had to log off quickly and cut off the post yesterday as my wife got home. Is this wrong that I hide the fur den from my wife? NOTE: this rhetorical, let's focus on the issue at hand.

 

Finally, I am wondering how many members the den has. Thanks WF for pointing out that it is difficult to assess a number. Further what proportion donates to keep the "doors open". I don't think it should fall completely on the administrators, but that is how it sounds unless there is a cry for help (NOTE: the "cry for help" is simply the terminology, not that the admin are actually whining. I believe the admin would not solicit donations unless there was a REAL NEED). The reason I ask these questions is that I am not so sure I will be willing to donate in the future (nor should the administrators of the site) if my donation, paltry as it is, is supporting the enjoyment of 500 or 1,000 or more other "fur people". This may sound Republican (I'm a Democrat), but I guess the point is, why should a few support many?

 

Well I gotta go to work. That's my $0.02 for now.

 

JA

 

PS I WANT TO THANK ALL WHO PUT EFFORTS INTO MAINTAINING AND UPDATING THIS SITE FOR OUR RESPECTIVE ENJOYMENT! WITHOUT THE SUPPORT FROM FOLKS ON THIS SITE I PROBABLY WOULD NOT HAVE HAD THE COURAGE TO WEAR MY FUR JACKET TO WORK, LET ALONE JUST OUT.

Edited October 28, 2012 by Guest

[Worker 11811]

Here's a question for you. (For everybody, in general, too.)

 

What do you think people would like that might make them feel happy about making a donation?

 

We can't do everything but we would certainly listen to any reasonable suggestion.

 

Just recently, we were talking about packaging some of the stories in our archive area as e-books.

Do you think that people would like to get an e-book version of our fur stories as a "Thank You" gift for donating?

 

We do have a "Members Only" section of our website but there isn't a lot of activity there.

What things would people like to see in the Members Only section? Would more people donate if there were things in the Members Only section that were more to their liking?

 

We have thought about taking advertising from sites like MinkgLove but, as many of you already know, web advertising is done in the form of "micropayments."

We would earn a certain amount of money for every 1,000 visitors who saw those ads. (Or some formula like that.)

While I'm sure that the MinkgLove would be happy to have us as an advertising partner, I don't know if it would make enough money to pay all of our bills.

We would probably have to join up with an advertising network that distributes a larger variety of ads. We can ask the company to target those ads to a certain age or demographic but we can't guarantee that the ads will be for fur or fur-related products.

 

I, personally, don't mind having SOME ads on the site, I would really, really like to get along without them if we could.

It really makes me feel like s#it to think that we find ourselves in the position of having to get donations "or else."

 

(BTW: Thank you for your donation, Furless! )

 

So, what do people think we could do in order to help people feel better about donating so we can keep the wolves away from our door?