Donations moved from SPI to SFC too?

[Rich Brown]

Before we go asking for money on the wiki, I'd like a little clarity about what we will do with the money. (Before you react negatively... I think we *should* ask for contributions. I'm a little concerned that the page doesn't ask for *enough* money. Here's my thinking...)

* Each of the Hetzner servers costs 50 Euros/month. Our Infrastructure page lists five of them.
* Assorted domain name registrations and assorted expenses probably add another 100-500 Euros per year. 
* We're looking at a total of 50 x 5 x 12, or 3,000 to 3,500 Euros/year (US$4,200/year) This is a substantial (not crushing, but still non-trivial) amount of money.
* This expense is currently being funded by people who are already working their tails off for the project

I don't know exactly how the SFC will handle any contributions we receive nor do I know anything about the tax laws outside the US, but we have clear expenses that offset a significant portion of the revenue (the contributions) we receive. That should minimize the tax effect.

Let's talk about what it would mean to be wildly successful. By my book, that would at least 10% more than our monthly expenses. Do we know how many active people are using OpenWrt? Could we get 100 people to contribute 3 Euros/month? Or 300 people to contribute 1 Euro/month? (We'd need to be aware of the transaction costs at those low dollar values...)

The Donations page needs to give people reasons to donate their hard-earned cash. I believe we also need to suggest an amount that helps us be successful. (American public television and radio now gets well over 50% of their contributions from "sustaining subscribers" - note the incredibly affirming name for these people - they "sustain" the tv/radio shows with their subscription...)

So... I've said a lot. Is a goal of covering our expenses + 10% a good target? Thanks.

Rich



> On Sep 16, 2020, at 12:23 PM, Thomas Endt <tmo26 at gmx.de> wrote:
> 
>> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
>> Von: Thomas Endt <tmo26 at gmx.de>
>> Gesendet: Montag, 14. September 2020 12:23
> 
> [...]
> 
>> Regarding the new Donate button: I will look into this later this day.
> 
> Please take a look: https://openwrt.org/inbox/donate2
> 
> If OK, I can move the page to https://openwrt.org/donate
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Thomas
> 
> 
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