Author Topic: Thinking about a DonationCoder.com fundraising thing and a celebration.. (Read 52,655 times)

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #25 on:** October 03, 2005, 02:13 PM »

Your point ?

mouser · « **Reply #26 on:** October 03, 2005, 02:29 PM »

well i quite like it, but maybe he was saying that it doesnt quite communicate what it refers to. i.e. you don't see it and go "oh that must be a logo for a donationware site"

brotherS · « **Reply #27 on:** October 03, 2005, 02:47 PM »

Quote from: mouser on October 03, 2005, 02:29 PM

well i quite like it, but maybe he was saying that it doesnt quite communicate what it refers to. i.e. you don't see it and go "oh that must be a logo for a donationware site"

Exactly

You notice the monitor (color) and the woman (color) first, only after that you might notice the bird... I don't say it looks bad, it's just not perfect yet

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #28 on:** October 03, 2005, 03:36 PM »

Sorry I was teasing (feminist point and all that) ... never mind

Actually I agree with what you are saying ...

How about an image (don't ask me to draw it) of a machine with a handle (could be like a meat mincer) - coins in one end, software out of the other ?

You could even have the coins being dropped by a dove

$:-\$

mouser · « **Reply #29 on:** October 03, 2005, 04:01 PM »

how about cartoon picture of homeless person typing on computer in the gutter with sign saying "will program for money"

brotherS · « **Reply #30 on:** October 03, 2005, 04:26 PM »

@CarolHaynes: Nice! And what about

"DonationCoder.com - turning donations into software"

?

@mouser:

Mark0 · « **Reply #31 on:** October 10, 2005, 10:52 AM »

About Fund rising...

I too can say only good things about GoogleAds. It's super easy to manage, and quite effective. I often try different ads positioning, colors, etc., but basically it just works.
In a forum, I think the best would be a small banner after the first reply; it doesn't distract too much, and often the Ads, being contextual selected, provide some interesting (not annoying) links.

As a side note, today I saw this site:
http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/sell/

You can upload some artwork / logo, and easily create a virtual-shop with branded things. So, in addition to donations, maybe it would be possible to offer some funny t-shirt, mugs, etc. with the DonationCoder.com logo (when it's ready), or personalize them with the icons/logo of some of the programs/tools, etc.
Could be interesting?

Bye!

mouser · « **Reply #32 on:** October 10, 2005, 11:02 AM »

we migh look into trying google ads one day, but only if we could make it so members never saw them at all.

cafepress has some really great stuff, and a huge variety.
but the real problem is that the base price is so large.
if most of the donators to this site donate from $5 to $20 dollars and $10-15 from every tshirt goes to cafrepress, there is none left for us

so maybe we need to make our own iron on designs and make the tshirts ourselves

momonan · « **Reply #33 on:** October 10, 2005, 12:19 PM »

The beauty of cafepress is that you give them the design and the price you want to charge for an item. Then members of DCC can buy it, knowing that a portion of the price will be returned to DCC. For example, a small magnet is listed at $2.49. If it were listed at $4, DCC would be sent the difference. Since the basic service is free, there would be no DCC outlay of funds, and it could be a source of additional revenue. The downside is that only those people who made a purchase would have something with the DCC logo on it.

If you just want to provide a DCC iron-on logo to every DCC member, you might try something like this: http://h30094.www3.hp.com/product.asp?sku=1058803&jumpid=ex_r2910_dealtimesmb/accessories. I estimate that you could print and ship these iron-on logos for approximately $1.75 each (purchase, printing, envelope & postage). The question is: do you want to send one to every donator? If so, that would be a gift, not a fund raiser (although, if worn, might generate some interest). Or do you want to ask a donator to contribute an additional $2.00 (or $3.00), if he/she would like a iron-on logo? The problem with the latter approach is that you may get only a few takers, and then lose the community and free publicity angle.

Personally, I like the lottery idea, with one of the donated programs as a prize. Or, since many of the members already have these programs, what about having DCC buy the winner (who already has one of the programs that have been donated) any program of his/her choice up to a maximum monetary amount? You'd have to chose that amount carefully, though, in case no one participates in the lottery.

rjbull · « **Reply #34 on:** October 10, 2005, 01:17 PM »

Quote from: CarolHaynes on October 03, 2005, 03:36 PM

How about an image (don't ask me to draw it) of a machine with a handle (could be like a meat mincer) - coins in one end, software out of the other ?

Weird Al Walker used to use an inverse of that, bits in, tools and product out
http://webappwarehouse.com/weirdal/utils.htm

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #35 on:** October 10, 2005, 06:23 PM »

That's the sort of thing I had in mind, but instead of the dials etc. you could have Mouser scratching his head in front of a screen ...

And lot's of people standing around shouting suggestions ...

mouser · « **Reply #36 on:** October 11, 2005, 12:03 PM »

carolhaynes - hehehe

An Update on the Fundraiser Idea:

We have decided to go ahead with the Fundraiser for the month of November.
We are going to contact the companies that have offered discounts in the past and inquire about revisiting these discounts and/or offering a few more donation copies for us to give out in drawings.
The software giveaway drawings seem popular and so i think we will try hard to get a bunch of copies of stuff. which is why i'd like to make a request: if you know of any shareware authors who might be willing to donate a few copies of their program for us to give away, please ask them nicely for us, and if they are willing to, please have them make a post here or email me (mouser@donationcoder.com). We will make a special page of all such companies/authors who have donated copies for us to give away during our fundraiser.
We need a new logo and/or mascot!!!! If you have the skills or know someone who does and is willing to donate their time, please submit something.
We will try to offer some kind of tshirt or hat or something with donationcoder.com catchphrase+logo for people who want it.
.
We will try to revamp the site a bit in honor of the fundraiser; this will include some excerpts of nice things people have said in emails; if you haven't written us a nice email but have been meaning to, now is the time
If you know of some site that would be interested in receiving a kind of blurb about our fundraiser and/or our site in general, it would be nice if we could get out some publicity in november, so let us know.

mouser · « **Reply #37 on:** October 11, 2005, 04:20 PM »

after some careful thought, combined with suggestions on this forum, we are going to *TRY* incorporating googles adsense adwords.

as promised these ads should be 100% completely invisible to all charter/honorary members of the site. you should not see any ads, ever. the site should look completely unchanged to you.

only non-member visitors will see ads.

i think this makes some real sense and is definitely worth a try; in a real sense it seems to be a good solution because it means that even those who dont donate and join will be giving us a tiny bit of revenue from the advertisements, it adds an incentive to donate to the site (to remove the ads), and lastly, it has 0 impact on donating members. so in that sense it seems kind of ideal.

the only real downside is the possibility that it, like the license keys, will end up annoying *potential* members who have not yet joined the site; that would be a terrible shame if so. however, i think it's worth a try to see how it goes; we can always remove them.

brotherS · « **Reply #38 on:** October 11, 2005, 04:33 PM »

Quote from: mouser on October 11, 2005, 04:20 PM

after some careful thought, combined with suggestions on this forum, we are going to *TRY* incorporating googles adsense adwords.

as promised these ads should be 100% completely invisible to all charter/honorary members of the site. you should not see any ads, ever. the site should look completely unchanged to you.

You should add an option to the forum settings to allow donating members to enable them.

If they are not too annoying (depends on how you implement them) I'm willing to enable Google Adwords, just to support DonationCoder.com even more.

Mark0 · « **Reply #39 on:** October 11, 2005, 04:36 PM »

Ditto for me: no problem at all to see some GoogleAds.

Bye!

mouser · « **Reply #40 on:** October 11, 2005, 04:38 PM »

that's a very sweet gesture

rrtwister · « **Reply #41 on:** October 11, 2005, 04:43 PM »

you can hook me up with the ads also as it is for a good cause.

Veign · « **Reply #42 on:** October 11, 2005, 11:07 PM »

Me too - I have no problem seeing ads that are blended in with the sites design. Sometimes find links to things I never knew existed and it gives you a little revenue...

Why don't you put up a poll and see how many members would object to the ads - I bet you would be surprised how many wouldn't mind.

zridling · « **Reply #43 on:** October 12, 2005, 12:56 AM »

Going back to the original post, it's a good idea and October a good time to do it. As for large donations, if I'm holding the winning Lotto ticket tomorrow night, we'll all party on Easy street for a while!

m_s · « **Reply #44 on:** October 12, 2005, 09:03 AM »

I'm okay with the ads; don't particularly like 'em, but I can certainly live with them. (I do enjoy playing a simple game of seeing what adsense ads are placed next to my friends messages on gmail - sometimes they are so bizarre!)

mouser · « **Reply #45 on:** October 12, 2005, 10:17 AM »

ads will be invisible to honorary/charter members, that is as it should be.

momonan · « **Reply #46 on:** October 12, 2005, 11:30 AM »

Wait a minute. I just got all excited about the possibility of seeing Google ads on this site. Now you tell me a visitor can see them, but I can't?

I think members should have the freedom to see the ads, if we want -- especially if it brings in (even a little) revenue to DCC. Please reconsider. What about the suggestion that you conduct a poll before you decide?

mouser · « **Reply #47 on:** October 12, 2005, 11:40 AM »

hahaha...
ok ok im sure its not to hard to enable them for those are are curious to see them..
and of course it will bring us a bit of revenue if you click them.

ill add an option in members profiles so they can turn visibilty on and off, that should make it easy.

m_s · « **Reply #48 on:** October 12, 2005, 11:45 AM »

You get money for my clicks? Hey, I'm clicking all over my desktop right now - bring 'em on!

mouser · « **Reply #49 on:** October 12, 2005, 01:56 PM »

btw -
not to get everyone too worked up but suffice it to say there *will* be some special giveaways and discounts in novemeber to celebrate the success of the site so far