Support Kokoro Cafe[/size]
A big thank you to everyone who sounded out their opinion about what to do about the lag and errors on the site! It seems most of the people who voted agreed that donations, advertisements and merchandising is a good route to go so I have set up a donations page and a Kokoro Cafe store. I'm still working on the advertisement part since I don't want to flood the forum with bad ads. You can see the original post here. Please contribute what you can.
Just a little information about the donations and store. The store will be handled through a company called CafePress and all donations will be handled through Paypal since we have users from all over the world and Paypal accepts foreign currency. I laid out a plan on how donation funds will be used since this is your money we are talking about and I don’t want to keep you guys in the dark about where it’s all going.
Kokoro Cafe Merchandise via CafePress [/b][/size]
Donation NotesWhere is my money going?
$150 or Under
All proceeds will go directly into the cost of upgrading hosting for a better, more reliable forum. $150 will get us a 3 year plan. It is the cheapest plan available and since this site has been mostly stable as of late I’m going to take a risk and save all donations until we reach the $150 goal so we can get the best deal for the site and get the best use out of everyone’s money. I will make an announcement once the $150 is reached.
Over $150
100% of the donation proceeds will be used to improve the forum:
40% - Future hosting costs
30% - Improvement of the forum (i.e. – more walkthroughs, cosmetic changes to the forum, etc)
15% - Thank you gifts for users who helped the forum (i.e. - moderators, users who contributed walkthroughs, donators, etc.)
10% - Contest gifts open to all users
5% - Saved for a rainy day (i.e. – if we are low on funds for hosting) or other potential forum projects
Note: This is only an approximation. I may adjust the percentile later when I have a better idea of how much funding there will be to use towards the forum and what needs more attention.
Also, keep in mind this is the amount after I get taxed and Paypal fees since I can’t set up a non-profit status without having to jump through a ton of hoops like setting up a board of directors, etc. which at the moment I don’t feel like this forum has reached the point that a board of directors actually needs to be set up yet.
Thank you gift to donators
My artist friend Bix707 and I have created a Kokoro Café wallpaper for those that have donated $1 or more. This is a small thank you present for all of those that have so kindly decided to support the forum. Sizes are available for mobiles devices and desktops. You can access the download section here or locate the V.I.P Donator's Booth in board index after you have donated (important: do not check remain anonymous option if you would like access to this section).
As for the store, all purchases will be made through CafePress. They do worldwide shipping for international buyers, you can refer to the 'Shipping Information' link in the store for more information. I wish I could lower the cost of all the merchandise for everyone but I don't have much of a choice since I'm going through CafePress to sell the stuff. I can tell you that the store itself really makes around $1-$5 for each item sold and the bulk of the money goes to CafePress for materials, labor, etc since I don't have to handle any of the stock and do any of the shipping myself. This also means I can work on other things, like improving this forum.
If you think CafePress is too expensive I can tell you they seem to like holding sales so if I know they are holding a sale I'll make an announcement and share the coupon code.
Also as a side note, for one of the designs in the shop, the winter design is incomplete. I plan to have that empty banner removed where Happy Holidays is. Right now it's just an empty banner without the happy holidays. If you don't care if the empty banner is on there then you can go ahead and purchase it but if it matters then I would wait till I have updated the design or get the Holiday version with the Happy Holidays on it. Thanks!
Thank you for your support! [/b][/size]
Linkback: https://kokoro-cafe.net/index.php?topic=769.0
January 15, 2014, 03:22:13 AM
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