Hello, everyone! Today's subject is funding. Let's do a little math: ArtGrounds has 4000 registered users. 1300 of these will be active in a given month, 700 of them in a week. Each of these users will spend at least /month on themselves, probably much more. Every user on the site can afford to done /month without noticing. How can I be so confident about this? With a budget of less than , most of you would be living in a developing country, without Internet access, or even access to clean water and electricity. Let's take one of the things ArtGrounds could need funding for, to demonstrate how little is needed to make a difference for the site. As you all know, the radio station on the site has all but been shut down, because we don't want to get sued by record companies for playing music illegally. If just /month were collected from our 700 active users, or about 13 cents per user, the radio station would be covered. The question is not <<Who can donate to ArtGrounds?>> but <<Who is too lazy and greedy to do so?>>, and thus the guilt has been delegated. xD If anybody is interested in donating a small sum now and then, I will set up a PayPal account for the purpose. I will also possibly accept cash (US dollars, no coins) per mail.

hmm..i agree....funding would be a great thing for this place...not only could we bring teh radio back, but we could probably add some other features. at teh moment i have no way to donate any money, but in like 4 months r so i should and you can bet i'll donate what i can.

I GOTS NO PAYPALZ I R OLDFASHION-ED

GO THROUGH POST DAMN YOU

Sounds like an awesome idea, I was wondering why there was no radio O: Ya know artists need music, and if we all were listening to a good song all at the same time, we'd get a better group mood :3. Cept, I'm Canadian >> Am I able to exchange currency online?

The guilt has driven me to physically harass several of my schoolmates in order to derive cash to pay for the site. However, I used the money instead to pay for necessary school materials. And then I feel guiltier for stealing money and not even using the money for the original purpose. A cycle eschews itself.

If you have VISA or MasterCard or such, you'll be able to use PayPal. It may be possible to transfer funds to your PayPal account from your local bank, but I wouldn't bet on it. Merchant accounts let you transfer -from- your PayPal account to your local bank account.

no credit card, i can, however, mail you delicious pumpkin bread!

I could donate money a month, such as £5 a month., if it helps.

"The question is not «Who can donate to ArtGrounds?» but «Who is too lazy and greedy to do so?», and thus the guilt has been delegated."? Could you elaborate the seriosity of this statement? I can name a thousand things I potentially could feel guilty of; Like for example spending that dollar on a service serving myself in the end, instead of donating said dollar to a charity organisation. Sorry, if it was intended as a joke, but I truthfully didn't get it.

It was a joke. Had I intended to play on people's guilt, I would've made it far less obvious, I assure you. ;) Unity, your donation would be much appreciated. I propose creating a new PayPal account for the purpose of accepting donations. I will deposit 15 dollars to this account monthly. I will also see about providing extra services for and at the request of everyone who donates. The accounts will be kept public. Donations will be public unless the donor requests anonymity.

And of course, in the excitement, I forget that I already renamed my personal PayPal account for this purpose, since it laid unused. The account is webmaster@artgrounds.com.

15 USD deposited.

I'm gunna try donating some money for christmas if my dad lets me use his paypal...

Great stuff, MazBourne. This might help fund some of the money I've just started putting into advertising.

£10 a month from me c:

More simple math: / €12 / £8 from 10 people a month is 0 / €120 / £80. This covers a radio license, with plenty left over. If only 9 people donate just / €8 / £5, that would cover the / €71 / £47 radio license precisely.

What sort of extra services could be offered to donators? I envision that donation would give you an official membership of some kind, special tag on your user name and a cool title in the forum. These special members could get a say in how the site should look, what it should do, etc. Maybe special members would get more options in their profile? Fire your suggestions!

Another idea: Depending on how much you donate, you can ask for changes and new features in Sketcher. I'm also thinking about releasing Sketcher on a kiriban, based the number of dollars gathered, so that Sketcher2 could be released once we've gathered 0 or more, for instance.

Wow, I'd really love to help out on this. I may not be on here near as much as I'd like to be, but I really want this site to keep on running smoothly. I still stop by at least once a day to check up on things. ^_^ I'll donate next week, after I get paid. Ok? :D

That last comment from "FelineFire" was actually from me. I somehow was switched to her account. WTF?!!!! Anyways, I would like to donate to the cause. Sorry for the mix up!! How strange?...

haha 8D; I accidently went onto someone account coz I pressed "posses" 8D;;

Sounds like you hit the Possess button on her by accident. :P Explanation to ordinary users: Admins have a button for "becoming" other users. This is useful for changing forgotten passwords, changing offensive names and forum signatures, etc.

(I really should pop off an e-mail to the admin mailing list about this, but only half the people actually have good enough e-mail accounts to receive messages there, so this'll do.) You can unpossess a user by clicking Unpossess in the menu to the right.

*scratches head* Well, I would donate, but I'm in a bit of a quandry right now... I am currently in college, and I recieve all of my funding from my parents. They mail me checks, which in turn immediately go into my ATM account. I don't have any credit cards, and for some peculiar reason my parent's cards aren't accepted by PayPal... As it currently stands, I am also approximately 0 dollars in debt due to the plane tickets which I purchased to see Donut during winter break (<3), as well as other expenses. I am hoping that the gifts I'll recieve for my birthday will cover that. So, out of curiousity, what about alternatives? I am certain that Thor has been trying to gain advertisers for this site, maybe we could all lend a hand there and gather local or family businesses that would be willing to pay AG for their advertisements. Surely gathering a number of businesses smaller than that of the number of members could fund AG just as well. Aside from that, what about an AG store? I have seen some fantastic works of art on this site, if we mirror DA's store without forcing the artist to forfiet their copyright to the product we might be able to pull in some money. Additionally, we have 4000 users, folks. 4000. I bet you that if we started selling art products (tablets, art supplies, software, etc), we'd earn more than what we need.

Many good insights there, Senkennomei. Yes, I have been trying to gain advertisers actually. I'm no expert at marketing though, so my efforts may have been in vain. As for advertising local businesses: Unless done for altruistic reasons, I don't see the usefulness of advertising to all of cyberspace a business that only delivers locally. My experience tells me that it is hard to succeed at Internet advertising. As for an AG store, that is actually not a bad idea. In addition to what you mentioned, it could sell merchandise (cups, t-shirts), which would help spread our name. When it comes to selling computer/art supplies; we would be unable to keep items in stock. We do not have a warehouse, and stocking items in one place does not make sense when shipping worldwide. There is a strategy that works, though. We simply order our items directly from a supplier geographically near the customer, and ask the supplier to ship the item to the customer, but bill us. This strategy is used by many smaller shops, since it saves you the hassle of keeping items in stock. There still is the challenge of finding suppliers...

prints might be a good idea, but for things like art supplies and tablets... i don't think they would sell considering the fact people can usually take a short drive to get some in person. and if not they' probably buy from a [i]reputable[/i] seller. plus, no storage lol. I JUST WANT A GODDAMN DRACULA/PNUT PRINT, OK. and maybe hgb if she agrees to be my sub.

Correct all instances of the word "supplier" above to "distributor". Also, the term for the business model above is "[url=http://onlinebusiness.about.com/od/startingup/a/dropshipping.htm]drop shipping[/url]".

"As for advertising local businesses: Unless done for altruistic reasons, I don't see the usefulness of advertising to all of cyberspace a business that only delivers locally. My experience tells me that it is hard to succeed at Internet advertising." Well, many local businesses wouldn't have a use for internet advertising, but those that do would almost certainly pay for it, especially since there isn't, to my knowledge, a monthy upkeep on advertisements on this site. Photography stores are capable of e-mailing photograph retouches and prints, and their business can span to worldwide proportions. They would certainly be an ideal target for internet advertising, as would other companies which can send their products over the internet. Thus far, the AG store still sounds the most appealing to me. There are several pieces of art which I've seen come from this site that are definitely print/poster quality. It can be assumed that a portion of the funds earned need to be given to the artist, but it should still be able to earn a suitable profit.

i just got a paypal but im only allowed to get money from other people online through commisons e-e (so far im broke on it...) ill help when and if i get a debit card or somethin or i accually start advertizing my commisons...i miss the radio :<

Bump

You know.. me and my family recently went bankrupt and wanna know how much Miss Nyu has in her purse? FOUR DOLLARS AND A PENNY! I have no paypal, but sureee.. Let me stuff it in a envelope and mail it to you. XD That helps, don't it?

I WILL DONATE MY KIDNEY FOR DJING X3

YEAH, ONCE AGAIN, PUMPKIN BREAD.

I shall donate! D:

Oh, wait, the "no coins" thing just sent my sending-you-lotsa-pennies idear right down the drain XP

OMGOMGOMG, ever heard of Cafepress.com? It's a place where you can create stuffs and sell them online, like t-shirts, mugs, buttons, etc. It's a free service, but of coarse, the site does get some of the profits from your shop, and after searching that damn site for like, 20 minutes (or maybe I'm just stupid like that and the link to it was right in front of me the whole time, but who knows XP ), I found some info about pricing and royalties and such: https://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/help/pricing.aspx I wonder if Paypal will accept all my pennies...8D

Actually, I created a CafePress.com account yesterday. I got stuck in the T-shirts section. So many different types... o.O Wonder if there's a CafePress that prints your logos on stuff that's actually fashionable, hehe...

Okay... I know I'm on a very crappy Internet connection but... CafePress.com is so slow that I can't use it. It just doesn't want to cooperate. ArtGrounds loads in a fingersnap. What is this crap...

Cripes! Those T-shirts are way too expensive. I refuse to believe that a T-shirt costs more than 3 dollars to manufacture, they're all made in China anyway. A T-shirt should cost no more than 8 dollars, I'm not selling them at those crazy CafePress prices.

I wouldn't sell a T-shirt if it didn't have my -own- graphics on it. What do you think I am? Some kind of a balanced, normal person? I doubt those T-shirts would last very long. The washing would kill them.

I wouldn't sell a T-shirt if it didn't have my -own- graphics on it. What do you think I am? Some kind of a balanced, normal person? I doubt those T-shirts would last very long. The washing would kill them.

Because I was on the worst Internet connection EVER for the last few days! It would literally not let me do anything without going down. >_<

I could not eat lunch for a week and end up with , but I gots no PayPal....>.< Damn parentals....xD I wouldn't mind donating though! =3 After X-mas, I'll have some dough to donate.....n.n

Sorry, but I'm broke... We're putting my brother through college, and it sucks all the money from our wallets. *turns out pockets* An AG shop would be cool. You should make pen and pencils. Those things spread around like wildfire, especially in schools. Instant advertising AND funds! AG socks would be cool too. And shoelaces. You know, I've seen college shoelaces? *is getting waaaaaay off track*

You could still sell it, just tell people that it's not your fault that everything's so expensive.

I'm a lazy ass and... poor... XD Also I am barely active at all anymore, today oddly, I feel like being active. Maybe I can keep that up? Haha.. I doubt it… I am still rather anti social. But you’re my friend so I’d give you some money if I had any. I really cant even afford 1$ at the moment. Haha. Yes.. I am that poor. But I agree that everyone would be able to donate that mach at the least! I think you should set it up if you haven’t already.. I have a head ache and and, as I said before, to lazy to read all the comments. But like I told you, you give me ftp space for free, so once I get a job I want to donate monies to you anyways, because I really do appreciate it and don’t want you to think im a greedy bitch. You probably already do cause I only ever message you anymore when I need something -_-;; sorry about that. OK I GOT OFF TOPIC. Anyways~ I think you should go for it, even if not many people are going to participate, because a little is better then nothing right? Ah… I should set up an account for people to give me money too… “[b]The send Kriss to Korea fund![/b][ [i]SHE NEEDS HER JANG[/i]” Yes… I will get on that XD

I'm new so I'm sure I have little say in anything, but I would be willing to donate. I don't know how to use paypal though but I can figure it out. I just hope this site doesn't become another DeviantART. I like DeviantART but I love this place because it's not DA. But that doesn't make sense. :P But yeah, I can donate.

People sure come up with a lot of reasons why they can't donate. Just skip one McDonald's meal and send that money to Thor. Skip just ONE McDonald's meal a month and send that money to Thor. If everyone donated a month this site will have the funding it needs. From what I can tell, if you went through the effort to make a post explaining why you cannot donate, then you feel a tinge of guilt. Why not wash away that guilt and donate?

Um, the fact remains that I'm broke. I don't even have the cash for fast food. So, yeah. I would if I could but I can't.

I'll see what I can do when I get a job. *doesn't want radio death* D:

Thing is though once my UT clan server gets back online I'll probably need to pay something for that.

ok i would like to give to ya Thor (just need to get some money to do it) but i mite be able to help with the funding see my mom runs a photography business (local business tho) see can print posters, calendars,and other stuff(i got to ask her to find out all the details) she got a web site ill post it up later I'll post up more info later just got to talk to her about it well if you like the idea anyway

yaaaa sell tshirts!

I'm willing to pass up a bundle of cash =) I got a job so paying for the site would be no sweat. I'd be happy to throw out a lot for it. I have to set up a paypal myself in order for this to happen. Once I do this I will be overjoyed to contribute to the site. Lets see how many people will push into it.

Lol..The last post is almost a year old..

Hmm... I would be more than happy to donate small amounts whenever I put some money on my debit card. I don't have, nor want a paypal account, however- So let me get it straight-- You set the account up with a Donation feature, right? Otherwise, I can't donate money, since that's the only way they'll allow users without account to use a credit or debit card to donate. :3 And whenever you get this sorted out, you should publicly post the link up that takes us where we need to go when we want to donate. Anyways- good idea. The first post itself was slightly confusing, but I get the general gist, lol. Good luck, and all that jazz. ^_^

You know this thread might be best closed and remade as the need arises.