Making the most of a donation drive

I'm running a donation drive to raise money for some server upgrades. We're a third of the way to our goal amount ($750) after about a day and a half since the original announcement of the drive. Not bad I guess. That could be due to a large donation by my co-admin. Most of the donations are much smaller, $5/$10, and that's fine and was expected.

However, I'd like to increase the rate at which people are donating. I can't really help how much they donate, especially since we have a lot of younger members. But I was wondering how can I increase the donation rate (the frequency of receiving donations)?

Has anyone ever ran a successful donation drive? What did you do to drive up your donation revenue?

Here's what I'm doing so far:

- The announcement (as a thread) and a separate "announcement" at the top of all the forums.
- A donation bar at the top of the forum home and our home page to show the progress we're making toward the goal amount.
- Donors will be put in our premium users usergroup, as usual.

I don't want to bug them too much, but at the same time, I don't want it to slip away from everyone's attention. I'm not doing this for the profit. All the money raised will go toward the hosting upgrade. And any additional money raised (if any) will be used to improve the site in other ways that I have planned, should we raise enough money.

Any ideas or suggestions would be great.

 

I've never run an actual donation drive. I have a page where I keep track of how much in donations we get each month and I also post how much we need that month. I also have a little blurb on the bottom of the page that will mention if I want to do something special on the site - like certain server upgrades and how much they will cost. If I don't have the money, I don't do the upgrade. They can tell when the server is being sluggish and something needs to be done. I don't like pushing for donations and never have. I have a donations link in the navbar and that's all I'm willing to do. I go to other sites like mine who PM everyone every month or have notices posted all the time asking for money and it drives me up the wall!

 

I've never held a donation drive either, but I do tell the members what their money is going to (article mod, pretty artwork, etc.)

 

I have never had a donation drive, but how ever if I did. I would be greatful for what I received and not pissed at what I did not receive.

 

I'm not upset, since it's going very well so far. I was just wondering if anyone had any tips on making it more effective.

The reason I am doing this is because the upgrade is a necessity for a variety of reasons (growth, security, etc.), but I couldn't afford it on my own. If I could continue with my current hosting arrangement, I would. I really was uncomfortable coming out asking for money. The only way I've accepted donations until now was a donation message at the bottom of my largest forum. My members seem more than happy to help out though, so that makes me feel a little better about it.

 

Dave, we had a donation drive on the Linnie Forum last summer, because there were a few add-ons I wanted to purchase for the board, and I intend to do it again after our Next Top Model competition ends.
We set it up so that a large portion of the proceeds go to an organization related to our niche (which happened to be The World Parrot Trust) and the rest was used to improve the site with premium add-ons. It worked out very well, and the members enjoyed it because they were able to support two causes at once - the forum and a parrot organization/charity.

Have you looked into Premium Memberships for TB? It's something I noticed you don't offer, and I'm sure you have your reasons for it, but it might work out well - especially considering your membership base. (It's more successful than you'd expect)

You could keep these funds in a PayPal account or something and put it towards your hosting bill or any extras. This will bring you some funding year-round rather than only when you hold drives.

Best of luck to you.

 

Nick, when you say premium memberships, are you talking about subscriptions? Because we do have a premium members usergroup for members who donate, which was in place prior to the donation drive.

There are two reasons I'm not too crazy about subscriptions. First, there's not a lot to offer that isn't already available for free. Second, I don't know if you took the survey we had several months ago, but almost all members who took the survey voted against paid subscriptions; which is odd because they are very enthusiastic about donating. I suppose it's the wording (donate vs subscribe) that makes the difference.

I will definitely consider it though. I was actually going to put together another survey about other topics in the future. Maybe I'll squeeze a paid subscriptions question in again to get an idea of what everyone thinks of it.