Thread: Your Support
View Single Post
  #23  
Unread 09-30-2009, 10:02 AM
John Beaton's Avatar
John Beaton John Beaton is offline
Member
Able Muse/Eratosphere Sponsor Appreciation!
 
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Qualicum Beach, British Columbia, Canada
Posts: 7,526
Default

I had hoped to avoid mentioning actual amounts on this thread, but others have and I’m worried that the guidance has gone in the wrong direction. Let me do some guess-timating.

Alex hasn't raised funds for some time and does not do it annually. Ignoring his time, the costs of running the Board must be several thousand dollars per year. So let’s take a target of $5,000.

There may be many registered and active members but only a small number will have a strong enough attachment and enough concern to contribute. Let’s say we get 40 contributors. And let’s say we can break them into 4 groups of 10 each:
A – strong attachment, can afford a meaningful donation
B – strong attachment but short of funds
C – more casual attachment, can afford a donation
D – more casual attachment but short of funds

Now let’s say that, based on the discussion above, they contribute as follows: A - $40, B - $30, C - $20, D - $10. The result will be $1,000, or one-fifth of the target.

To hit the target on this model, we would need to multiply the numbers by 5, i.e. A - $200, B - $150, C - $100, and D - $50. If we reduce the A and B donations to C and D levels, we end up with only 60% of the target, so some donation activity at A and B levels or higher is needed.

I hope this at least suggests that “reasonable” donations should be higher than the amounts mentioned earlier in the thread.

Alex, if you are able to give us some information, it would be good to know if the above analysis is close to realistic. For instance, can you tell us the annual Board out-of-pocket running costs, and the number of contributors and total contributions so far?

John
Reply With Quote