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[Update #2: Wed 20180606 @ 14:30 UTC: WOW! Since this story first posted, we have received 36 subscriptions totaling approximately $1126.27 which brings us to a total of approximately $2716.36 which works out to just over 90% of our $3000.00 goal!! I am extremely impressed with the showing of support from the community and reminds me why I volunteer so much of my time here. It really is the community! THANK YOU! --martyb]
[Update #1: Mon 20180604 @ 14:14 UTC: So far today we have received 16 subscriptions bringing us to just shy of $2000.00 raised for the period and just over $1000 to go. THANK-YOU! --martyb]
tl;dr: SoylentNews needs your financial support... $1400 by June 30th. Please Subscribe.
We have raised approximately $1590.09 towards our funding goal of $3000.00 which covers the period from 2018-01-01 though 2018-06-30.
We run the site with a team of volunteers — absolutely nobody gets paid for their work on this site... all the funds raised go directly into keeping the site up and running.
From the time we went live on February 17, 2014 through today, we have posted over 22,000 stories and nearly 120 polls. In kind, the community has posted over 3270 journal articles and over 688,000 comments.
We understand that not everyone can afford to support the site financially. Those who make contributions "in kind" through submitting stories or comments, making moderations, and the like... please accept my sincere "Thank-You!" Without your contributions, there would either be no site or no reason to come here.
For those of you who have previously subscribed, thank YOU for "keeping the lights on". Good wishes did not pay for servers, federal and state tax returns, or domain registrations... You did! Thank you!
A complicating factor came from our having a problem with the subscription page about a month ago... but TMB put up a fix and we've seen no regressions, since. Perhaps this bit you and you meant to "try again later"? (As of my writing this, we have 123 users who have accessed the site within the past month, who had previously subscribed, but whose subscription is now lapsed.)
Whether your subscription has lapsed or you never previously subscribed, would you please consider signing up? Go to the subscription page, pick a duration, and type in an amount that is at least the amount suggested for that duration (excess amounts are, of course, most welcome!). If you would like to help the site without getting a subscription for yourself, you can make a gift subscription by specifying a UID and an amount, instead. (If you have nobody in particular in mind, please feel free to use UID 6 — "mcasadevall")
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @12:22PM
Interesting idea to set up something like an endowment.
Something similar was suggested for a non-profit pbc that I volunteered for back in the late 1980s. This pbc had funding (from a large company) to administer prizes for a technology contest. The contest ran for several years, but the prize money was provided up front, so the prizes were fully funded. The large company had their name attached to the prizes, but no other connections to the pbc. The interest on the prize money was available as seed money for the pbc, which I hoped would become an endowment. Interest rates were higher then, after the 4 year duration of the contest, it turned into about USD $35K, iirc.
However, what actually happened was that a subsequent slate of officers decided to raid the money for some capital expenditures (or as I felt at the time--buying toys for themselves to play with).
I had hoped that an endowment could support one part-time paid employee to handle correspondence and membership, which would have taken a huge load off the volunteers. The end result was a split in the membership with quite a few volunteers dropping off. The pbc continues to operate but it is pretty marginal, barely surviving on membership dues and a few die-hard overworked volunteers.