A word or two about ads and donations

[SteveColes]

As I have said, it is my goal to make North Carolina Woodworker, Inc. finacially independent. The only way to do that is by donations and advertisements. The more donations the less ads. The more ads the less donations needed. Etc., Etc.

How well either of these 2 revenue channels will work will probably work will take about three months. Factors in this are placement and who are the advertisers and how they pay. So I will be playing with these factors see what will produce and what will not. When I have enough feedback, I promise I will get rid of ads and or placements that are not really productive. I have have no real wish to clutter up the site at all, much less if we are not really getting something from them.

As for donations, they were both a great revenue getter and dismal failure.:swoon::swoon: How can that be. Well in the first 3 days after accepting donations, we raised much more than I thought was possible.:eusa_danc:eusa_danc. But then it almost stopped. I guess there was pent up up demand to contribute, but with guilt satiated, everyone pretty much forgot. So the Board of Directors will be looking at that to see if there is anything we can do about that without becoming obnoxious.

BTW, now that we are a corporation, we can now accept checks for donations. Hint, Hint.:rotflm::rotflm:

Make your checks payable to:

North Carolina Woodworker, Inc.
201 Chilcott Lane
Apex, NC 27502

And of course you can still use the PayPal method. at
http://www.ncwoodworker.net/index.php?page=donate

 

[Travis Porter]

Are donations tax deductible?

 

[SteveColes]

Are donations tax deductible?

Probably. To be proper, I have to wait until the IRS says to, but I doubt that we will get formal permission until Nov or dec. However, I would assume they are, meaning keep receipts and/or records. Also, only donations received after july 16 2008 would count.

 

[SteveColes]

I am getting a lot of questions about what is fair share, etc. How much do we need. First I have no REAL idea what a fair share is. The reason for this is actually simple. We are a non-profit. We provide our services FREE. The minute I put a price on this, we potentially our endanger status.:no:

There is another reason. It is the oldest one of all. Too much pressure. I/We(the staff) have never wanted to make anyone feel that they should or must contribute. So to say "fair share" or what we need or whatever, is to apply pressure. Remember that everyone here has different needs and priorities. We are not a club. We want people to contribute, but with their knowledge and expertise. We want people who just lurk. In many cases those are the people we really serve.

So what should you contribute. Anywhere from $0 to $1,000,000. At a frequency of daily to every century:rotflm::rotflm::rotflm:

Actually, please also remember that the economy is bad. There are some of us that are out of work. So my answer about fair share is also simple and what I have always said. If you want to contribute and can afford to, please do. How often, whenever. you feel like it. How much, whatever makes sense in the context of YOUR personal finances and financial priorities.


As to the question of what do we have and what do we need? I'm not sure. The corporation's fiscal year started July 1, 2008. We do not have a formal budget. When will we have a budget? Sometime after we have a new Board of directors and we are all able to sit down and decide what we will do.

Right now, I am all the Board members and all the officers. That is not acceptable from the point of view of the corporation and the site being able to run and finance itself.

 

[SteveColes]

I am deleting almost all of the posts in this thread except clarifications, etc. I really don't want to re-direct much attention from our main purpose, woodworking. I have posted about some things, just so you all know what is going on.

Please, Please. Do not post that you are giving or will give a donation. I really want to keep all donations anonymous. There are many ideas that you presented in this thread. And they have given me and I hope the Board of directors some ideas.

If you have some ideas about what will help, please send me or anyone on the advisory panel a PM.