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Coming Soon Donation Drive 2015 -- And Changes!

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With August coming to an inevitable close, you might reasonably expect that the annual GWJ Donation Drive is fast approaching. And, you'd be right. Good job.

Since we launched way back in 2003 we’ve spent a reasonable chunk of every September asking for your help in keeping the lights on and the party going, and 2015 will not be different in that respect. In other respects, however, it will be significantly different -- and hopefully better -- so we wanted to give you a heads up on some of the changes coming to the donation drive before we were standing in front of you with our hat in our hands. Also, we wanted to explain a few of the changes and why we’re considering them.

The biggest change is that we’re doing away with PayPal as the standard platform for donating. We may still keep some sort of PayPal option in the hopper (this is still being discussed) for cases where it’s just easier for you, but I don’t know entirely what that’s going to look like yet. In its place we’re going to be moving to Patreon for our donation drive.

We’ve been talking about moving away from PayPal behind the scenes for a while now. There’s a lot of reasons for the move, but one of the most critical ones is around the logistics of gathering, recording and documenting donations. In 2004 we had just under 100 donors, which we could support relatively easily with our by-hand model. Last year, we had just under 1,000 donors. Simply put, the system we put in place more than ten years ago needs an update.

In addition, since having to move away from the raffle-style donation drives we used to have, we’ve adopted more of a Kickstarter/Patreon model of offering various benefits at different tiers and milestones. While Kickstarter has never made much sense for our long-term approach, Patreon does, and so running our own thing in a very manual way as opposed to using a system with a good reputation that does this kind of thing often and well seemed if nothing else, inefficient.

So, the move to Patreon allows us to do two things, 1) rebuild the overall donation gathering system and 2) match up the way we’re already doing things with a system that does those same things well.

We are still in the planning stages for determining what will be included as rewards for the different donation tiers. You will probably see a few things change there as well, though a lot of the long-time favorites will probably still show up in one form or another. We are still very concerned about trying to ensure that donations benefit the community at large, but the question of how we make that work using Patreon’s system is one we’ll have to bang our head against a bit. We'll talk about tiers and rewards at some point down the road, but for now, know we're working on it and trying to think of cool things to include.

There’s another big change associate with moving to Patreon, and that is that we will be using their system of recurring payments. Rather than having donors provide a lump sum of cash at once, we’ll be allowing and encouraging people to pledge a recurring amount.

A couple of things I like about this. First it doesn’t ask you to make a big jump right now. I get a lot of emails every drive from people who’d like to donate more, but just don’t have that kind of cash this week/this month/etc. I am always moved by these emails because, there’s no condition under which I think someone should feel bad about how much they’ve donated to support the site. It’s wonderful that you want to share more, but the fact that you even think about giving is an amazing honor to me, all the more so if you do it when times are tough. I’ve been there, I know how that feels, and you’re a rock star for even thinking, “I should help out Goodgerdom.”

Secondly, I think the recurring payment model gives you more authority over your donation. You have ongoing control over how much or if you continue to support. If we don’t keep earning your trust and earning your support, you have more control over whether you remain a supporter.

One other substantive change the move to Patreon implies. While we will continue to have our annual donation drive, working through Patreon does mean we will have donations open year-round rather than just accepting support in September. That said, from a practical standpoint it’ll look just like it always has. We’ll make a big donation push for a month, and at the end of that month you probably won’t hear much more from us about the Patreon. We don’t intend to put up a Patreon link on the site year round, or stuff like that. However, the Patreon itself will remain active and we will point it out to people who ask how they can support the site – a question we get from time to time.

There are a lot of things we’re still figuring out as to how this change will impact the Donation Drive and the site in general, things like: How will we make plans at an annual level if we don’t know from experience what Patreon fluctuations look like? How will having a monthly donation as opposed to an annual lump-sum affect our budget? Stuff like that, a lot of which will just stay behind the scenes, but we wanted to be upfront with you guys before the drive started, to let you know what’s going on and to hear your thoughts on it.

Our hope is that the move will actually be a better experience for you all. I know last year a few of you had to email me multiple times to get your donations correctly recorded, and I can only imagine how frustrating that was for you. I felt, and continue to feel, bad about that inconvenience for some of you, and it’s just been time to come to terms with the fact that the donation drive is bigger than one or two people being able to just manually organize it and track it by hand.

Once we get this all figured out and settled, we’ll launch the 2015 Donation Drive. I want to thank those of you who’ve supported the site in the past, and those who are thinking of doing so again. You guys are the reason there’s a GWJ site, forum and podcast on the web in 2015 and for the foreseeable future.

Comments

Thanks for the updates. It does sound like Patreon is the right tool for the right job in this case.

A move to Patreon makes sense to me, and wont prevent me from donating. Looking forward to the drive.

Sean I've been patronizing you for years, how does this change things?

I'll probably end up giving more overall on a patreon model because falls tend to be particularly expensive for me. Thank you for the update!

Any word on the still-pending items from last year's donation drive? (e.g. a rotation of more diverse mascots for the GWJ logo)

Much better! Never liked Paypal as a company and their service seriously sucks.
Patreon is the way to go really.

IMAGE(http://cdn.toucharcade.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/shut-up-and-take-my-money.jpg)

Cathadan wrote:

Any word on the still-pending items from last year's donation drive? (e.g. a rotation of more diverse mascots for the GWJ logo)

Entirely up to Elysia's schedule. She's got precious time with family before going back into full time school mode so I'm not pushing too hard. Working on custom icons for winners right now!

Patreon works for me. I guess it also means you guys can plan things a bit better when you know that donations are coming in during the month? Regardless, happy to support in any way, and keen to see what kinds of projects/content you guys can enable with the funds!

I love the idea of Patreon. I think overall it works great for people as well. $5 a month that someone can give = $60 a year that is possible to donate where if it was a lump sum you may see $25 or $30. More for you, easier for us!

Great work guys, I'm looking forward to see how this pans out.

DeThroned wrote:

I love the idea of Patreon. I think overall it works great for people as well. $5 a month that someone can give = $60 a year that is possible to donate where if it was a lump sum you may see $25 or $30. More for you, easier for us!

+1

I've been supporting creators via Patreon for a while now, and I would love to add GWJ to that group. Let's do this!

Great idea. I love the value-for-value model with Patreon. It'll keep you on your toes to always bring your A game!

As far as the issue you brought up with planning ahead based on your budget, if I may make a suggestion, maybe you could have a quarterly or semi-annual "earnings" call after you've collected a few months worth of donations.

Without going into details of course, you can then tell the audience that based on last quarter we can now do x or y, and then put it to the community to vote on it.

I hate to be the person against a move to Patreon but I will say I'm not a fan. As someone who has contributed for the last several years, I really like the model where I hear about the donation drive and throw some cash in the tip jar. I'm not excited about Patreon's desire to add yet another monthly subscription to my billing cycle. I'm not saying I won't contribute, even if it's really not something I want to see on my monthly statement.

As a side note, do you guys worry about what a truly subscription based payment method does to expectations? While history leans towards this never being a real problem, I'd worry about folks expecting content for their dollar (per month). I wonder if it would change the social contract for some folks even as I feel I know the site well enough that it would not do so for me personally.

fuzzyslug wrote:

I hate to be the person against a move to Patreon but I will say I'm not a fan. As someone who has contributed for the last several years, I really like the model where I hear about the donation drive and throw some cash in the tip jar. I'm not excited about Patreon's desire to add yet another monthly subscription to my billing cycle. I'm not saying I won't contribute, even if it's really not something I want to see on my monthly statement.

You can very easily cancel your Patreon support for GWJ (or anyone else) anytime you want, so I don't see the problem you're describing as "yet another monthly subscription to my billing cycle".

If you want to make it the same as the old method, just decide how much you want to give as a one-time payment, enter that as your Patreon amount, then cancel after the first payment is processed.

I hate to be the person against a move to Patreon but I will say I'm not a fan.

I appreciate your take, and can't fault you at all for the opinion. We knew going in that some people would be excited about the change, while some would definitely not like it as much. It's also one of the reasons we're still considering alternate payment options -- though, again, I don't know if that will actually come to pass or what it will look like.

As a side note, do you guys worry about what a truly subscription based payment method does to expectations?

Simply, yes. Both of these are things we talked about extensively. Honestly it's been a topic of conversation not on the span of weeks or months but years. I do think the same thing happens to some degree at a lump sum level too. I think in either system an unhappy user might reach a point where they don't feel like they got the value for what they contributed. Hopefully it doesn't happen often.

But my take is that Patreon actually gives the user more authority to actively do something if they don't feel like they are getting their dollars worth, including reducing or cutting their support, as opposed to the old passive model of just not contributing again.

To be fair, if a bunch of people feel like they aren't getting their money's worth, that's a message to us and something we'd need to address.

MeatMan wrote:
DeThroned wrote:

I love the idea of Patreon. I think overall it works great for people as well. $5 a month that someone can give = $60 a year that is possible to donate where if it was a lump sum you may see $25 or $30. More for you, easier for us!

+1

I've been supporting creators via Patreon for a while now, and I would love to add GWJ to that group. Let's do this!

All the plusses!

I'm usually quite frugal for donation drive, just because of the lump donation issue. This will be awesomer!

Patreon is the way to go. Much easier all around.

Oh, and:

IMAGE(http://orig05.deviantart.net/0ab9/f/2013/204/3/8/team_fortress_2____shut_up_and_take_my_money_by_tadeu_costa-d6er3bg.jpg)

IMAGE(http://memeguy.com/photos/images/for-no-opinion-week-42421.jpg)
The donations will continue.

MeatMan wrote:

I've been supporting creators via Patreon for a while now, and I would love to add GWJ to that group. Let's do this!

Me too! More than happy to add the site to my collection

That was very well written, Elysium. Particularly that moving part about people who approach you saying they want to give more but can't right now.

I'm okay with Patreon, let's do this thing. This wiener bomb is about to blow anyhow.

Huzzah! I'm real dang glad to hear about the move to Patreon. As someone living in a far off foreign land I could never actually donate thanks to the 'wonderful' restrictions PayPal placed on receiving donations. Luckily now I might finally get a chance at earning my own little forum badge and helping all you crazy folks make more awesome podcasts, articles and bad jokes!

I, for one, welcome our new Patreon overlords.

I like automatic recurring option because I'm easily distracted and miss the donation drives sometimes.

Patreon works fine for me; I've already got a couple of subscriptions going, including the GWJ-associated Heroine's Journey (which everyone should listen to, and Patreon-donate towards!)

fuzzyslug wrote:

I hate to be the person against a move to Patreon but I will say I'm not a fan. As someone who has contributed for the last several years, I really like the model where I hear about the donation drive and throw some cash in the tip jar. I'm not excited about Patreon's desire to add yet another monthly subscription to my billing cycle. I'm not saying I won't contribute, even if it's really not something I want to see on my monthly statement.

Alas, if only they hadn't bought Subbable.

I'm not really sure why you wouldn't leave a small, tasteful Patreon link somewhere on the page just for people who are suddenly struck with the urge to be generous but don't want to go hunting. Always make it easier for people to give you money, you know? It's not like you need to gate content with it or put it front and center or anything shifty like that.

Patreon is such a cool concept. I have some other people I should like to give money to and that have gone to Patreon so hopefully I can manage all that in one account.
edit: Specifically LoadingReadyRun and Jim Sterling.
edit2: and moviebob

Anything through SnailMail for us financing online challenged (see: no internet payment available) Goodness?

Patreon is good with me!