One of our members posted up-thread about setting up a proper non-profit. A non-profit has accountability. This is what I'm hoping to see, but I believe the poster has had two half-hearted PMs on the topic. I actually went out of my way to contact a member ITRW who hasn't posted in a while, but who has experience with NGOs. I figured we could use some help from someone with experience.
None of this has been addressed. I realize there are reasons for some of the cards being played "close to the vest", but some of us are not just tossing bricks at the plate glass windows; we actually care.
The JREF never "exploited" the opportunities available to them among the forum membership. Not for support of any of their efforts, not for financial gain (meaning "necessary funding", not "profits"). They also did their accounting, as you know, in a shoe box. They have no cross-relational information on how many Foundation supporters are Forumites. They have never accounted for the amount of money spent on events by Forumites. They simply don't know and don't really care because they decided long ago that the forums are a drag on "the mission" (which is so loosely defined and promoted at present as to be a puff of skeptical smoke).
And I don't even mean this to solely be criticism of the JREF but explanation for why some of the people here are saying that the new org can be self-sustaining. For the kind of chump change Icerat mentioned? I'm broke but if we had commitment and papers to show that this is formulated as a 501(c) or whatever the proper terminology is.... I could raise the funding for the first year in about four hours of emailing. I'd be really surprised if Darat and Jeff couldn't do it in half the time.
Amazon links can be pure money-makers, but dribs of money that help pay the bills. T-shirts and mugs and jewelry and paperweights? First, we have some talented artists. We need a logo and some ideas. And I'll bet they'd donate their copyright/ip. And it becomes another little dribble of income but a nice way to raise some awareness. I don't think of it as sustaining the forums, but just a trickle of resources (like Age of Empires refers to it). But I'd prefer to see fundraising and begging and a 501(c) set-up than commercial advertising, even to "visitors, but not members".
About 95% of that isn't true.
If you think the JREF doesn't know where its members are, you're out of your mind.
But honest to god, funding the forum with t-shirts and paperweights is insanity.
As someone just said in the chatroom, "That's like funding a conversation in a coffee shop".
Here's a comparison -
I'm working on promotions for a novel. At this point, I have generated an audience for the promotion of 150,000 people. The bulk of the work is being done by volunteers. Photographers, voice actors, filmmakers, artists, designers - those are all volunteers. Even so, about $2,000 has been sunk into advertising so far. But when I say "an audience of 150,000", I'm not even counting those people who will see the ads entirely by chance. 150,000 people will be ACTIVELY campaigned at.
The goal is to sell 2,000 copies. And the promotion is fun and interesting and involves puzzles and craziness and eerie crap that will happen in real life - and I'm STILL not sure if this campaign will succeed. To be safe, I'd like the number to be more like 400,000 people, and I'm still searching for ways to get to that number (though I'm swiftly running out of time).
You're talking about funding a 7k/yr forum within a closed system of 2,000 people. We do not have a high enough turnaround, or even a mission statement, that is going to draw in enough outsiders to offset that entire cost.
Now, I assume Zazzle is a lot like CafePress. I've had CafePress stores before. You get maybe $2 for each sale. Since what you're working off of it a closed system, it's better to just ask people for donations than to waste their money on a t-shirt you get a tiny percentage of profits from. If people are buying a shirt, they won't think it's necessary to donate direct. Instead of $20, you're getting $2.
If advertising whatever the t-shirt/paperweight concept is goes off-forum, great. You've expanded your audience. But then, again, you are looking at advertising costs - and you're also looking at having a campaign that is incredibly good.
This is my wheelhouse. This is what I'm good at. This is an unworkable concept.
Really and truly, it would be better to start reaching out to posters on an individual basis and asking them what they would be willing to donate and keeping a list up-to-date. Find the people who post a lot. Start with them.
