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October 12th, 2008, 02:41 PM #1
Supporting PAFOA through Paid Forum Subscriptions
CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE A FORUM SUBSCRIPTION
Since the start of this forum and organization we've always been pretty passive about raising money for the organization. We've had a donor page hidden on the main website but never really linked to it, and we as an organization have only ever explicitly asked for donations once (when we were hiring a lawyer to help us incorporate as a non-profit) but other than that we've just sort of let the chips fall where they do as far as fund raising. I will say however that we've been pretty successful at this, the members of this forum have always been very generous with many of them dropping us $10, $20 every few months and every penny is appreciated. Because we have always had so few costs we could afford to just let things happen naturally, however it's starting to look like in the near future we might start to incur some costs so we're going to need to start raising a little more money.
At this point in time, PAFOA web traffic looks roughly like this:- ~15,000 unique visitors a day
- ~100,000 page views a day
- ~400,000 unique visitors a month
- ~2,500,000 page views a month
- ~250 gigabytes of data transfer a month
Paid Forum Subscriptions
vBulletin has a great built-in featured called Paid Subscriptions which basically allows use to set up various subsciptions with various prices and various features which are automatically purchased and applied.
On the forum we have set up 6 levels of subscriptions:- Bronze Supporter
- Silver Supporter
- Gold Supporter
- Platinum Supporter
- Patron
- Benefactor
You do not (and never will) need a paid subscription to significantly use the discussion forum. Ultimately subscriptions should really be considered more of a donation than "buying" something right now, but as we move forward there may be some extra perks for members with varying levels of subscription.
The advantages of Paid Subscriptions over donations is:- I do not have to be involved, this removes a massive amount of time that I usually spend managing donor information. This time can now be put to better use.
- Account upgrades are applied automatically, if you purchase a subscription, your account will be automatically upgraded almost instantaneously and include your supporter badge on your profile and all of your posts.
Purchasing a Forum Subscription
If you want to purchase a forum subscription, it's pretty easy. Under your User Control Panel (the User CP link in the forum navigation) there is a section called "Paid Subscriptions". From this section of your account you can see your current subscription(s), when they started and when they expired, and the list of all subscriptions available for purchase. To buy a subscription you simply have to choose which subscription you want and use the drop down menu to choose the length of the subscription, whether it is recurring (auto-renewed), and click "Order". From there you will be taken to the screen that asks you how you would like to pay. Once you do that your account should be automaticaly upgraded.
At the moment the only method of Payment is PayPal. You do not need to actually have an account with PayPal to purchase, you can use your credit card without actually signing up. We will be working to expand to other methods of payment than PayPal, but unfortunately it's the only option available that integrates with vBulletin and has accepted us into their program.
CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE A FORUM SUBSCRIPTION
Old Supporting Member Accounts
If you had a supporting member or major supporting member account in the past, one of two things has happened to it:- Your account has been transferred to the nearest subscription tier based on the amount of your donations within the last year (rounded up) until 1 year from the date of your most recent donation.
- Your account has been downgraded back to a regular user account if you have not made a donation within the past year.
Last edited by danp; October 12th, 2008 at 03:36 PM.
Dan P, Founder & President, Pennsylvania Firearm Owners Association
Purchase a Forum Subscription • Buy some PAFOA Merchandise • Help PAFOA's Search Engine Ranking
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October 12th, 2008, 03:28 PM #2
Re: Supporting PAFOA through Paid Forum Subscriptions
I will be updating this thread with information and replying to questions throughout the day as I do more work on the forums.
Dan P, Founder & President, Pennsylvania Firearm Owners Association
Purchase a Forum Subscription • Buy some PAFOA Merchandise • Help PAFOA's Search Engine Ranking
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October 12th, 2008, 04:01 PM #3
Re: Supporting PAFOA through Paid Forum Subscriptions
Is there a way that users can determine their current 'expiration date'?
Get your "Guns Save Lives" stickers today! PM for more info.
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October 12th, 2008, 04:03 PM #4
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October 12th, 2008, 04:04 PM #5
Re: Supporting PAFOA through Paid Forum Subscriptions
Doh! Rep to you.
Get your "Guns Save Lives" stickers today! PM for more info.
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October 12th, 2008, 04:15 PM #6
Re: Supporting PAFOA through Paid Forum Subscriptions
Happens to the best of us
Originally Posted by soberbyker
What constitutes the various tags (donation levels) we now have under some of our names?
Quote:
Originally Posted by danp
Changes Made:
The concept of Supporting Members/Major Supporting Members has been removed and replaced with a new system. Users who have donated within the past year will finish out the remainder of their time in the closest tier (rounded up) which you will see as images on their posts. Donors who have not donated within the last year have been reverted back to normal status. There will be a separate, much larger thread on this in the near future, please do not ask questions about this right now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gnbrotz
Keep your eye out.
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October 12th, 2008, 04:46 PM #7
Re: Supporting PAFOA through Paid Forum Subscriptions
Dan, if you donate $10 one month and then say $40 the next month...will the system automatically upgrade you to the $50 level? Just wondering because my IPS forums won't do this automatically...I had to set up a misc. donation package and that requirs an Admin to adjust it to the proper donation level for for multi-donators.
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October 12th, 2008, 04:57 PM #8
Re: Supporting PAFOA through Paid Forum Subscriptions
Dan P, Founder & President, Pennsylvania Firearm Owners Association
Purchase a Forum Subscription • Buy some PAFOA Merchandise • Help PAFOA's Search Engine Ranking
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October 12th, 2008, 05:06 PM #9
Re: Supporting PAFOA through Paid Forum Subscriptions
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October 12th, 2008, 05:37 PM #10
Re: Supporting PAFOA through Paid Forum Subscriptions
Dan, FYI
on this page: http://www.pafoa.org/support/forum
at the bottom where you describe the features of the different levels you have PAFOA Club listed twice, I think you meant the second one to be PAFOA Insider
Thanks again for the work you do for the forum's betterment.
Bill
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