Supporting Membership?

Offer your ideas on how to improve the site or report problems.
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pizzaman383
Supporter ❤
Posts: 1730
Joined: 13 years ago

#1: Post by pizzaman383 »

I was recently thinking just how much this site has given me and how much I have learned by participating in the forums. I started looking for how to become a supporting member or give donations because although I'm not rolling in money it would be nice to give a little for such a good cause.

Is there something like this that I missed finding or does the site not need that kind of program?
Curtis
LMWDP #551
“Taste every shot before adding milk!”

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Boldjava
Posts: 2765
Joined: 16 years ago

#2: Post by Boldjava »

I am not aware of such a program. You can give donations to Grounds for Health (http://www.groundsforhealth.org/) and annotate your gift in honor of HB and its members. (Dan, delete if inappropriate, thanks).
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HB
Admin
Posts: 21983
Joined: 19 years ago

#3: Post by HB »

pizzaman383 wrote:I started looking for how to become a supporting member or give donations because although I'm not rolling in money it would be nice to give a little for such a good cause.
The site is supported by Google ads and sponsors; see the Commerce section on the Resources page for the full roster. There's no "donate" button, but I have thought about how to raise money for larger projects. However, it's never gotten past the "thinking about it" stage.

To provide a little backstory, I've been working on this site since 2005 (!). It started as a hobby site and has grown considerably over the years. I elaborated on this point in How's the readership on HB?



Since I have a "real" job, HB remains an off-hours work effort. In the beginning, it was a considerable investment, on par with a full-time job. Now it's closer to a half-time job. :lol:

At one point, I considered the advice of my career mentor: He suggested I focus more effort on my real job and hire out the work for HB. That would have enabled me to start a lot of projects I've wanted to do for years, but could never carve out enough time. For example:
  • Create a wiki-based FAQ curated from forum discussions
  • Update all the how-tos; modernize and refactor them for more friendly browsing
  • Establish a monthly coffee review schedule (and stick to it!)
  • Produce a weekly podcast
  • Produce a bi-weekly newsletter
  • Invest in pro-quality video production equipment (Whole Latte Love does this quite well)
  • Publish monthly content from paid authors and have them professionally copyedited.
Since the above requires time and considerable money, I mulled over financing options. In the end, I picked off smaller projects that I thought would deliver large benefit and didn't require hiring help (e.g., Even more improved support for mobile phones and You can never be too fast).

At some point, someday, I'd really like to take on the above projects (even financed by Kickstarter or similar). But for now, my other obligations-- like my real job and family --take priority. For those members who'd like to show their appreciation with a donation, Boldjava's suggestion is a good one. Or, if you want to show your support of HB, you could buy an HB lapel pin and wear it proudly. :D
Dan Kehn