This is a little late, but I figure that it’s better late than never!
For full transparency, I’m just going to give a high level overview of the financial situation of lemmy.ca through June 2023, when I started to accept donations.
Total Expenses: $30.00
This includes all hosting fees, including backups, etc.
Total Contributions: $1,503.03
- $1,184.84 through LiberaPay
- $318.19 through OpenCollective
All contribution amounts are not including payment processor and/or OpenCollective fees.
Remaining Balance: $1,473.03
I plan on transferring the remaining balance to the new admin team, whenever they are ready to accept it.
Thank you to all that have contributed so far, I couldn’t have gotten the instance to where it is now without your generosity. I’m very excited to see what comes next and look forward to watching the instance grow more!
Maybe keep some in reserve to cover for future growth?
The current funds are enough to operate it at it’s current capacity for ~11 months. Once we get to accepting donations again and figure out how to set up our accounting, I would definitely like to see a growing contingency reserve fund built up to be ready for future unexpected growth or unexpected slowdown in donations.
We will continue to be transparent in a similar format to this but split the remaining balance in a operating fund and reserve fund.
You probably want to encourage subscribing for a (low) monthly donations in order to have a continuous, predictable baseline.
That’s the plan!
Can I make a suggestion? I would like to contribute but I can’t afford a lot and frankly I’m a little embarrassed about how little I can afford. idk if your plans involve any sort of flair for people who contribute, but if it does, can you ensure there is a minimal amount people can contribute, that still gets their flair but doesn’t say they are cheap/poor? Thanks.
IMO, if you can’t afford it, don’t do it. What we really need is the ones of us who can afford a few bucks a month to actually give it. We should be able to get enough without having people who can’t afford it to have to pick this over more basic needs.