Donations, fundraising and support questions

[StuxNet]

@Igor @zador.blood.stained @tkaiser + any other mods, devs and users.

 

I'll try and keep this brief and to the point but I probably won't succeed.

 

Donations and campaigns
We ever thought about doing a kickstarter or indiegogo campaign for donations? I'm not sure of the exact differences between them but I know you can do campaigns for non profit means and donations. ie: Employing more devs, buying boards with donations, etc... w/e it is you guys might need. I'd be willing to set up the campaign with basics like pictures, description outline and what not with some more input. Then hand the 'keys' to the profile over to Igor or whoever, for financials on where the money will go. Whoever can set it up if that's to questionable, I'm just saying I'm willing to donate my time. 

 

I think Armbian donations could be helped by adding https://cash.me/ donation options. I'm pretty sure the fees are exactly the same as PayPal. However, anyone with a credit card can pay via donations. Just put in amount to donate, input CC info and that's literally it. No log in. No forgotten password, just hassle free donations. AFAIK Armbian only (really) accept donations via paypal. Which require people to have a paypal account. This can be a crucial hurdle that turns people away. I know personally it's been a whole deal trying to get family and friends to send donations to Armbian after I made them some Opi box. Those are nightmare stories for another day, I can't be the only one.

 

Here's a cashme example: https://cash.me/$BiTinerary/9999

Lastly, I've got my eye on this new FriendlyArm board >> http://www.friendlyarm.com/index.php?route=product%2Fproduct&product_id=197

Gunna buy two as soon as I get paid. I know you guys have your hands full, don't expect any kind of support any time soon but would it help at least put it `in the queue,` so to speak, if I bought one and had it delivered to a dev? How does that work? Cash donation might be easier but having a tangible item would inspire more motivation.
 

Maybe I'm missing something in consideration to the rest of the world and money transfers or w/e but just some things I've been thinking about. Lemme know if any of this resonates or if I'm off my rocker.

 

TL;DR:

• You should get a https://cash.me account. CC --> Donation != Paypal --> Paypal.
• At the very least add a https://www.paypal.me/ link to make donating slightly more simple. 
• Kickstarter or indiegogo campaign for non profit donations and at least visibility?
• Does it make sense to buy a board and have it shipped to a dev? Or is that overly complicated and/or not necessary?

[chwe]

16 minutes ago, StuxNet said:

Lastly, I've got my eye on this new FriendlyArm board >> http://www.friendlyarm.com/index.php?route=product%2Fproduct&product_id=197

Gunna buy two as soon as I get paid. I know you guys have your hands full, don't expect any kind of support any time soon but would it help at least put it `in the queue,` so to speak, if I bought one and had it delivered to a dev? How does that work? Cash donation might be easier but having a tangible item would inspire more motivation.

There you go.  

[zador.blood.stained]

2 minutes ago, StuxNet said:

We ever thought about doing a kickstarter or indiegogo campaign for donations?

AFAIK these campaigns are usually meant for projects that have a "finish line", that can be presented as a finished product at the end, for projects that will be selling something at the end. Armbian is kind of different - currently non-profit, annual expenses (like hosting, software licenses, SD cards, etc.) not depending on actual result.

 

10 minutes ago, StuxNet said:

AFAIK Armbian only (really) accept donations via paypal.

https://www.armbian.com/donate/

- Paypal (if I understand it correctly can be used to pay with any international CC without creating an account)

- Bitcoin (no idea how useful is it)

- Bank transfer

- Amazon wishlist (for Igor), AFAIK Igor got some good hardware upgrades using it

[finally]

33 minutes ago, zador.blood.stained said:

AFAIK these campaigns are usually meant for projects that have a "finish line", that can be presented as a finished product at the end, for projects that will be selling something at the end. Armbian is kind of different - currently non-profit, annual expenses (like hosting, software licenses, SD cards, etc.) not depending on actual result.

 

https://www.armbian.com/donate/

- Paypal (if I understand it correctly can be used to pay with any international CC without creating an account)

- Bitcoin (no idea how useful is it)

- Bank transfer

- Amazon wishlist (for Igor), AFAIK Igor got some good hardware upgrades using it

 

For a long term solution and also maybe made as a kind of 'supporter'-membership with some special sweets ('exlusive' beta images for example) I can think something like patreon could do the thing -> https://www.patreon.com/

[Igor]

I am aware of all those endless possibilities but am not really sure if we will raise much more money if we just add more ways for donations. I am somehow sceptic about. Very sceptic. IMHO the best (and also simple) end user donation way is Paypal, Bitcoin donations (for example) are second best, but they are few hundred / year (half of the amount was made by exchange rate rise) while everything else is just scrapping - if you don't put a lot of efforts into serious money raising project.

 

If getting rich would be a goal, we would not do Armbian in the first place  But in any way - more cash helps but also brings more problems and expenses. When there are few people, like we are now, you don't need advanced administration, PR or dedicated project leaders etc. This is a must when upscaled. I think first we need more people, volunteers like us, which perhaps later become a pro, when and if we reach that level or part time which is already possible in some way. Slow development keeps stress level reasonable and nobody need pills or waste amount of beer to keep up 

 

Current cash flow covers basic infrastructure costs. Hardware samples (at least boards) are thankfully mostly donated from vendors and I also got few items (in few years) from Amazon wish list (SSD drive, keyboard, WiFi card, SATA controller and few boxes of beer). It's nice to get those gifts and it's nice to get cash donations, but they cover only a small fraction of the work and do not cover a single engineer pay check. Everything that we collect is this way or another reinvested back into the project.

 

The main problem still persists with or without our project:
 

Quote

People expect all open source projects to provide the same level of support and maintenance as enterprise software, but for a 100% discount.

Jumping from here, where donations are simply broken among developers, to professional level seems quite a challenge - from a small group of volunteers without any non-technical worries to a company which has to make money. We are doing this for the sake of fun, to learn something, that some expenses are covered and perhaps once there will be more or we find a better way to fund a project.

[StuxNet]

@chwe Good catch on the specific board. Guess that answers that. I think what I was trying to get at was insight on board donation from vendors or not. Igor provided some light on that in his response.

 

@zador.blood.stained You're not wrong about 'finish-line' kinda deal but I've seen some that were support based. @finally's suggestion about https://www.patreon.com/ would be more applicable. I always forget about that one. Regarding donation methods, I stand by what I said. I really doubt the number of bank transfers and bitcoin donations received. At the very least those methods are angled towards those truly commited to making a donation. Not my family and friends. So I just wonder if there's a small group of people who want to but it's not dead simple so they just don't. You are right about the CC in paypal though. I always forget/overlook that tiny continue button when I go there. Also, I was mostly thinking paypal.me I believe is paypal to paypal whereas Cashme is not.

 

I like the amazon wish list thing, even if the stuff I've seen on there have been outside my budget. Don't think I didn't see that someone bought you all that beer you're talking about Igor

@Igor I feel you 100% about the money thing. "Mo Money Mo Problems." It's for the community first, everything else next. So maybe hiring devs/PR/others is outta the question, especially considering relatively small user base. Having a lil extra donations to throw at developers in their spare time might bring some more around? Also, good point on the support vs maintenance thing. "If you build it, they will come" First you gotta build it xD.

 

Alls Im tryin to say is that people generally aren't inclined to give their money away. So when they do, it's that much more important for the process to be dead simple. I can think of three people I could get to donate but if I don't have a link to send them. Might as well be a wash. What am I gunna say? Google armbian, click donate, click paypal, click tiny button on bottom labeled continue, fill out info, review donation, then complete donation?

 

This? https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_flow&SESSION=nmmct0-t07CFndB9yxP3F3HhCEKrKd-flV_qJUGp696Ag8HvtGk_M0r70q8&dispatch=5885d80a13c0db1f8e263663d3faee8d795bb2096d7a7643a72ab88842aa1f54&rapidsState=Donation__DonationFlow___StateDonationBilling&rapidsStateSignature=b2c1a9b1988c851788d6ef4629dd49b7b0199f8b

Or this? www.cash.me/$Armbian hell don't do anything and just add a paypal.me thingy to make it so that the word can be sent succinctly

I ain't trying to make nobody rich, just think there's opportunity being missed.
"Never underestimate a small amount of money." ~ Joe Ades. This guy literally died a millionaire based on micro transactions  and it's proved true in my own life. Not the millionaire part, the micro transactions xD

Spoiler

 

 

[zador.blood.stained]

Regarding Patreon - it has a tier based model where specific patrons get special privileges based on the amount of money they donate, and also there are project-wide tiers (goals) based on the total (montly) amount of donations. So I'm not sure what kind of benefits we can provide other than project-wide "more stable releases per year". Don't think that something like personal priority support is actual based on the amount of forum questions related to stable builds/supported boards and not related to 3rd party hardware and software.

 

And AFAIK Patreon won't bring new donation methods because it's still either CC or PayPal.

[StuxNet]

@zador.blood.stained 
That's prolly true about Patreon. Idk, Not at all familiar. However, I do know of someone/thing that uses patreon just to release new content and be notified of it. Maybe kickstarter, patreon, indiegogo are all wrong mediums for Armbian's 'product' model, I'm legit just trying to brain storm. 

"Patreon won't bring new donation methods because it's still either CC or PayPal." You prefaced this with AFAIK so I can't rag on ya too much xD but you're fundamentally wrong dude. This isn't an insult, this is encouragement to be more open minded. I could break down the psychology behind facets of of donation mediums. ie: 'separation' from payment, provide empirical evidence, etc... but I'm not going to.

TL;DR: I could rebuttal all day long as to why I think there could be improvement. Especially in cases regarding finances because I wouldn't make the 'suggestion' unless there was some strong factual basis. So here they are, applicable to all but mainly for adding Cash.me.

• Zero risk: Requires < 5 minutes to setup and I already offered my time, where possible. 100% of Zero, is still Zero in the event nothing happens.
• Guaranteed results: Easier to donate = more donations. Fact.
• Visibility: Whether we are on all of the above platforms, one or none. Expansion is visibility and asking questions is not stagnation.

Perhaps there is no interest in regards to donations. In which case, no skin off my teeth.

Stux out.

[zador.blood.stained]

@StuxNet

To be clear - I'm not against anything (obviously) and I'm not strongly in favor of anything (because it's up to @Igor to make a final decision and set things up)

 

Regarding Patreon I just want to state the obvious - if we will be adding tiers and goals then we have to stick to them and put more planning and organization into the project. And personally I think this is not the easiest task.

 

Regarding cash.me - didn't say anything against it, but I decided to look what's it about and was greeted by this:

 

 
 

Obviously for an European based project (even if you don't look at the public download stats GeoIP section) it affects both Igor who has to set the receiving side up and people who would want to donate and also will be greeted by this.

 

So: Zero risk - no idea, too lazy to set up a US based Tor or VPN exit node to read their ToS or list of accepted payment methods, got to squareup.com but let's say it is zero risk (to us). Guaranteed result - yes if every donation option is labeled with limitations associated with it. Visibility - no idea how projects are presented on cash.me, but it should improve.

 

Edit:

A good part of the user agreement

Quote

6. Square Account Registration for Payment Services

You must open a Square Account to access any Proceeds. You confirm that you are either a legal resident of the United States, a United States citizen, or a business entity authorized to conduct business by the state(s) in which you operate and that you are an authorized signatory for the business you represent. You must use your or your business’ true and accurate name when opening a Square Account. This name will appear on the credit or debit card statements of your customers for all payments you accept using the Payment Services.

 

[StuxNet]

My bad. This is the entire reason for this post.

 

I wasn't sure at all if/how any of this stuff works across the world and I had my doubts from the get go. Review previous posts. This is disheartening honestly. I shoulda read the user agreement but I really don't read those things. From a USA stand point, the option is zero risk, surely you can understand why I said that. All things considered, it's not.

 

This would not be known however if the conversation never deviates beyond reasons why not. At the end of the day the responses were no, no, no because the actual answers were in fact no, no, no.

We at least got the creative juices going, are that much wiser. Lets (by that I mean @Igor) throw up a paypal.me link and call it good? Except not cuz I think thats only PayPal to PayPal soo.... entireConvo == False.
 

 Just glad to be having it. It's honestly one of the few ways I could think to contribute beyond the standard crap. Just glad to be having the discussion, so thanks @zador.blood.stained

[Tido]

On 2.9.2017 at 7:53 PM, zador.blood.stained said:

Regarding Patreon I just want to state the obvious - if we will be adding tiers and goals

If this is so, then why have many podcasts this in use ?

 

In my opinon Patreon would be a good additional option to:

   PayPal: Make This Recurring (Monthly) - option

 

Patreon, beside being an american company like PayPal, I see no bad thing about it, you keep 90%.

"It is popular among YouTube videographers, webcomic artists, writers, podcasters, musicians, and other categories of creators who post regularly online."

 

What are my responsibilities as a Patreon creator?

As I was reading this, does @Igor hold a Trademark for "armbian" - otherwise such donations could also be used to register it.