Considering timns comment - lack of buzz - would this scenario be appropriate?  Say I make a monetary pledge (to be determined by my bank account  ).  Then some part or all of it would be reallocated to each person that contributed an app/software/script?  It's rather obvious that most of the creators here do so by choice, but 'twould seem a nice incentive/recognition in regard to their efforts.  Granted, that incentive/recognition would not be substantial for any given individual - more like giving children a lollipop for cleaning their bedroom(s) - but it would be concrete evidence of a task achieved.

You don't seem to be particularly fond of that concept, mouser, but my public radio station is in process of finishing up a pledge drive, and this would be somewhat in line with their process(es), so it's fresh in my mind.

I also like the thermometer concept, but with a twist.  An indicator - no names attached - of pledges completed.  Then link to those completions, although that might best be done when the challenge/pledge period is over, so as to avoid identifying anyone in particular.  It might be presented in parallel with a dollar thermometer.

Does any of that make sense?  Maybe help merge the disparate concepts that have been voiced?

Edit:  six (6) new posts since I started this, but none seem to obviate it.

My favorite idea so far about the fundraiser was to focus on the idea of trying to get all of the people who have signed up for the newsletter and registered on the site to finally make their first donation.. If we could only think of something that would motivate these people, who probably aren't frequent visitors, to make their first donation..

If only all of those 233,795 members would make a $1.- donation next month...

I have kind of resisted the idea of having a giveaway drawing for donors -- I always fear it may attract people for the wrong reasons.

But what if we say that everyone who donates (either a new donation or sending existing donationcredits to site account) can enter into a drawing to have an idea turned into an application?  We could maybe do a multi-round thing where at the end of the month we select a couple of ideas from the donors, and then let all donors vote on which appliction(s) actually get created?

So we would encourage people to make their first donation in order to have a say in the creation of a new application.

We could combine this with a larger giveaway of things of course.

All good ideas.  Your worst foe is lethargy/inertia.  It's like starting to exercise - the hardest part is to get started.  Once you're involved, it's a lot easier to keep going  .  Newton's laws, donchano - he was a pretty sharp cookie (?)  .  Perhaps you could add a poll to the initial contribution form - either fixed choices or a free form text box, although that latter could eat up a lot of time.  This would be just for the contributors, although you could make allusion to it in the enticement section  .

Edit:  you could also change the poll according to the initial donation amount, i.e., offer more, or more specific, choices - make it a graduated thing w/o mentioning it until some amount is specified by the donator.

The 50/50 thing continues to confuse the hell out of me -- and i can see it has resonated with some of you -- can someone else take a shot at explaining the significance of it to me.

I'm all for encouraging people to donate to each other on the site -- as far as i'm concerned donating directly to someone on the site who makes the site a better place is at least as good if not better than making a donation to the site fund.

The part that confuses me is that every single donation to DC goes into your account in terms of donationcredits that you can split between the site account and other people on the site.  Every donation can be split 50/50 or 75/25 or 25/75 or 100/0 or 0/100.  And that's confusing enough.. I just don't understand the appeal of forcing a certain split on people and the added complexity of that.

mouser,

I guess it's a nice tribute to those who do so much to keep DC interesting and informative.
I'd also bet that a large percentage of the users' 50% finds its way into the site fund.

BTW, any idea what percentage of DCredit recipients ever cash them in?

I don't have numbers, but i stand by what i said in this article which is basically that DC is like a "ping pong" economy, where donations between users ping pong around until they reach someone who tends to substantially contribute to the site, at which point they are cashed out.  So basically only a handful of people really get enough donationcredits that they bother to cash them out.  The rest just pass them along.

BTW, any idea what percentage of DCredit recipients ever cash them in?

I did it* and bought TC license as gift for friend.

*) Although mouser rejected it afterwards

Quote from: cranioscopical on February 22, 2011, 12:52 AM

BTW, any idea what percentage of DCredit recipients ever cash them in?

I did it* and bought TC license as gift for friend.

*) Although mouser rejected it afterwards

What nice fellows you are!

So, do you consider that most of the money donated to the site that's 'in circulation' between members is, in reality, already donated to the site?

Let me put that another way, if everyone holding Donation Credits allocated those to the site during the drive would that be nothing more than an empty gesture? Last time around, in order to move the thermometer we had to put in 'new' money.

what we say on the donationcredits page is that if your donationcredits go unused for over a year, they revert to a site donation.  i think if anyone objected to that there would be no reason not to give them back -- the point is simply that many people donate to the site and never explicitly give their donationcredits away and we do consider these to default to site fund donations.

but more to your second question -- the fundraiser thermometer in the page only counted new donations into the site, and did not distinguish between donations that went into the site fund and those that went to a specific member on the site.  you can see that is different in spirit to the idea of counting only donations into the site fund, and doing so regardless of whether its a new donation or transfer of donationcredits.

from my standpoint i guess i prefer the fundraiser thermometer to show new money coming into the site regardless of who it goes to.  that's not to say that people sending money to the site fund isn't important, it's just to say that i would rather see new money from new members come in -- i think that's more healthy -- and i would like to see the hardcore long time involved members donate directly to members of the site that they know are producing good stuff (people writing coding snacks and mini reviews, and nany participants, etc.)

does that make sense?

- I assumed it was more like a fundraiser where you got sponsorship or something.

That was my thought when I used the word pledge.