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Annual Goal

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anthony

Founder
I have made a very slight amendment to the donation goal, calling it annual goal now. Why?

I want to incorporate some marketing costs into the annual running costs, as required.

I have brought the goal back to run from 1 Jan to 31 Dec. It was set to renew at 27 Jan, so I shaved off 27 days to bring it into a true annual cycle.

Until 2016, I had never performed SEO on this site to intentionally bring more relevant traffic to the site. As such, normally, year on year our traffic was around the 1.2 to 1.4 million mark annually. Slight increases or decreases. Think of 2016 like a personal trial to what I would like to engage further year on year now.

Handing the site over to @joeylittle to administrate has allowed me to work behind the scenes at marketing and other site technical aspects. The result from a couple thousand US$ and a whole lot of my time, is I increased traffic by 900,000 for the year, whilst slightly dropping the bounce rate. That means, more accurate people are finding the site, getting what they want, then leaving.

For every member, it means that you're getting far more diversity in responses now than ever before, and that was the entire aim of my 2016 project.

Oh, I've also reduced the overall server costs even though we have more traffic, from experimenting and such to work out optimal solutions.

2015 Traffic

1.42 million

2016 Traffic with Marketing

2.29 million

My "want" is to raise the annual goal to $5000, thus covering the server and some of the marketing costs to continue to drive more users here to increase member response.

It isn't a huge jump from our raised funds as is, and means I can continue to build the site for its members overall benefit. The alternative is members hate the concept, I do nothing further, and allow the site traffic to fall down over 2017 and thus less member responses ongoing.

What I would additionally like to incorporate if a new goal is accepted, is a quarterly raffle prize of US$200 to US$250 as a single prize, second prize lifetime premium membership and third a one year premium membership, to incentivise donations of $5 or more to help with the new goal. Every minimum $5 increment in each quarter buys a ticket, for example.

Member thoughts / feedback / opinions?

Edit: Removed the full stats to remove complicated information.
 
quarterly raffle prize of US$200 to US$250
I might suggest this as bi-annual instead of quarterly. Two really hard fundraising 'push' periods, plus the general ongoing donations - that feels more reasonable to me. I would fear with four drives, the same core people would be reaching into their pockets four times, and it'd start to feel like one just ended when another one's begun. This is based on the premise that 30 days is a 'drive' period, and that they have two weeks of excitement building in order to kick them off. March and September appeal to me.

Personally, I love structuring it as an annual fund/goal, it makes a lot of intuitive sense.
 
This site has done more for me than any other resource out there. I know I am not alone in that. If by doing this, the site is able to reach and help more people I fully support that. Financially, I haven't been able to donate the last several months like, but things should turn around at the start of the new year, and pledge to make up for that.

As far as I am aware, there is no other community like this one. This site is a precious and rare gem and full of the kindest and beautiful people I have ever had the privilege to meet. I have no other choice than to give a resounding yes.

However, if I am donating cash, it doesn't make much sense to me to hope for a cash prize. Lifetime premium or other site related perks would be a bigger incentive to me. Perhaps a unique perk that regular premium members don't have accesses to. No clue what that would be though lol.
 
Seems like a great idea to me. It's a rather win/win as the site gains more members thus more help for more people thus more diverity of replies and more help for exisitng members thus also more funds donated my more members and it would be spread out more as we would have more members donating. Advertising is always good in my opinion and I think the increase will end up being absorbed by having more members to donate.

Also, that raffle was great. Made the donations sky rocket. I agree that 2 annually is better and easier for all and would certianly help.

Anyway, my 2 cents for whatever it's worth.
 
@anthony I know that you have a few goals, one being reaching as many people as you can, and two trying to fund the site. I'm not sure how this suggestion will go over, but is it possible to charge a fee to sign up to use the site. Small, but if EVERYONE had to pay something to use the site, and then possibly have a fund raisiing event it would at least guarantee funds from everyone, and take the load off of some of the same people that have given repeatedly.

I'm not talking a lot of money, even a $5.00 fee per yr, wouldn't really put a burden on people. IDK! Maybe just talking out of my ass here....
 
I also agree that membership would suffer if there was a fee to pay. Personally, I joined because it was free. I started to pay monthly when I knew I was here to stay and it was "save" but before then I was ready to bolt. I wouldn't of joined if there was fee, even $5 a year.

And keep in mind that many here don't and/or can't work. $5 a year is too much for many. Thus affecting membership that way as well.

I also think, and maybe I am wrong but it is my opinion, that when members donate on their own, they are doing so because they are grateful, thus the amount of money is much more then if they did it because they had to. So that $5 a year is a month or more. That was the case for me anyway. Therefore you are getting more money.
 
but is it possible to charge a fee to sign up to use the site
It doesn't work. It is an old, tried and tested method across the web for decades, rife with failure. Even paid products, you will find it is free to access the product for x period, then you have to pay (often has a large failure rate) OR free to access basic aspects, then pay to get more features (which this site uses and is the most successful structure).
 
It's just sad when you look at who has donated, and it's the same people over and over again. When I came back to the site earlier this yr, I was in a better place financially to donate, and so I will continue, for as long as I can.

I'm grateful for the site, it's helped more than therapy has throughout the yrs, with the exception of one therapist.
 
@joeylittle @anthony So if you are going to continue with the raffle aspect(which I think is awesome) then why not have ONE gigantic raffle per year instead of 4. So instead of having 4 with top prize of $200-$250 why not have ONE with top prize being say $1000 Amazon gift card. Starting date Jan 1 with drawing on Dec 1 just in time for Xmas each yr!

Stickies on each forum, reminding people of the raffle, with an occasional reminder from staff for members to buy their ticket for a chance at the $$. Honestly, $1000 is way more appealing than say $250, even though any amount would be appreciated. The more the merrier, if you get my drift!
 
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