Financial update: we need more income
Published on November 27, 2024 by Nelson Chu Pavlosky
I have good news, and I have bad news.
The bad news is that we have about $1200 in the bank, and right now we spend about $120/month on web hosting at Masto.host. This would give us 10 months (September 2025) before we have trouble paying our hosting bill, if we stop receiving donations and costs do not increase. If all current recurring donations were to continue, we'd be taking in $789.60/year, which is less than our current hosting bill, and hosting costs are likely to increase over time.
The good news is that our server currently has about 175 active users, so if everyone gave an average of $10/year, we'd be fine for the foreseeable future. Or, if 30 people gave an average of $5/month, we'd also be in good shape. Point is, we need to roughly double our income, but we have a large and engaged community that I think can swing these basic expenses, if we make it easy and fun to do so. I don't think our war chest shrinking necessarily has anything to do with declining enthusiasm; in fact, our server has seemed more lively lately. Rather, I think administrative issues like having to stop recurring donations when we switched fiscal hosts, and not having asked for money recently, have more explanatory power.
I would like to improve our finances beyond the basics, to allow us to consider adding more services, and to prepare for unpredictable costs, such as legal expenses. I would like to explore more funding sources, such as merch. I hope to expand the team of people making projects like merch happen. (I'd even be willing to investigate cutting costs by running our own server on volunteer labor, if we had multiple sysadmins who would welcome that challenge.) I'm confident that with your help we can secure our financial and computing resources for the long term.
Thank you for your support, monetary and otherwise. Please start a monthly or yearly recurring donation today, if you are not currently subscribed, and stay tuned for more updates on our Jawns adventure! (Seriously, contribute here.)
The bad news is that we have about $1200 in the bank, and right now we spend about $120/month on web hosting at Masto.host. This would give us 10 months (September 2025) before we have trouble paying our hosting bill, if we stop receiving donations and costs do not increase. If all current recurring donations were to continue, we'd be taking in $789.60/year, which is less than our current hosting bill, and hosting costs are likely to increase over time.
The good news is that our server currently has about 175 active users, so if everyone gave an average of $10/year, we'd be fine for the foreseeable future. Or, if 30 people gave an average of $5/month, we'd also be in good shape. Point is, we need to roughly double our income, but we have a large and engaged community that I think can swing these basic expenses, if we make it easy and fun to do so. I don't think our war chest shrinking necessarily has anything to do with declining enthusiasm; in fact, our server has seemed more lively lately. Rather, I think administrative issues like having to stop recurring donations when we switched fiscal hosts, and not having asked for money recently, have more explanatory power.
I would like to improve our finances beyond the basics, to allow us to consider adding more services, and to prepare for unpredictable costs, such as legal expenses. I would like to explore more funding sources, such as merch. I hope to expand the team of people making projects like merch happen. (I'd even be willing to investigate cutting costs by running our own server on volunteer labor, if we had multiple sysadmins who would welcome that challenge.) I'm confident that with your help we can secure our financial and computing resources for the long term.
Thank you for your support, monetary and otherwise. Please start a monthly or yearly recurring donation today, if you are not currently subscribed, and stay tuned for more updates on our Jawns adventure! (Seriously, contribute here.)