Better Late than Never! The 2020 Heavy Harmonies Donation Drive

[heavyharmonies 169]

Welp... the world has at least somewhat stabilized, so hopefully this is a better time for the annual donation drive than March would have been.

I realize that 2020 has been a challenging year for everyone, so I fully understand if people won't be able to contribute.

Time once again for me to beg and plead for everyone to chip in to cover Heavy Harmonies' expenses. Costs for the site run about $191 a month, about the same as last year.

So when I say "costs", what do I mean? It's the out-of-pocket expenses to keep Heavy Harmonies running: server lease, bandwidth, hosting support, and the subscription for this forum software.

After several excellent years in 2017 and 2018 when the drive reached goal and then came within 88% of goal, 2019 didn't do so hot, only reaching 64% of goal.

The donation drive will run through Halloween, October 31.

 

Anyone who makes a single donation of $20 or more and has a board username will be added to the group "2020 Donors". This gets you the following benefits:

• A nice shiny icon in your profile showing that you are an HH Donor for 2020: 
• An increase in the size of your PM storage from 200 to 500 messages
• Exempt from the search flood control (normally if you try and do a search more than every 20 seconds, you get an annoying little "please wait" message)
• The ability to start threads in the sale forum.
• No time limit on editing your own posts! This will especially be useful for those with trade/sale lists as you'll be able to edit them rather than posting revised versions.
• A warm fuzzy feeling inside that you are helping support Heavy Harmonies!

If you donate $50 during the drive, either as a single donation or across multiple donations, you will be added to the group "2020 Gold Donors". This gets you the following in addition to the above:

• A bigger, fully animated shiny badge: 
• All your posts will be highlighted, because if you show this much dedication to HH, what you have to say is obviously more more important! (just kidding, but your posts will be accentuated).

In your donation, please put your board username in the notes section! Otherwise I have no way to tie your donation to your membership here on the board.

If you are currently in the 2019 donor groups but don't wish to donate this year (or can't), at the end of the donation drive, your group membership will revert to the regular non-donator membership group.

Membership in the 2020 Donors group will last until the end of next year's donation drive, at which point you can donate again to remain in the Donors group with the same benefits, or revert back to your current member group.

PayPal donation buttons are found at the top of all the pages on the main site and here on the forum on the right side at the top, or if you'd prefer to send a money order, check, or cash (not recommended, but I know some people prefer to do so), you can make payable to Dan Harding and send to:

Heavy Harmonies
P.O. Box 17158
Urbana, IL 61803
USA

If you can't give $20, give $10... if you can't give $10, give $5... it's just once a year.

(And if you happen to be fortunate enough to be earning 6 figures or more per year, please feel free to give gobs of cash! I'm not opposed to having a sugar daddy or seven )

As always, your support is greatly appreciated!

-Dan

[heavyharmonies 169]

P.S. A couple of people donated earlier in the year, which is why the goal is already at 8%, and I'll add those people to the appropriate donor groups.

[KarpetRydOFunk 174]

Always asking for money. 

Get a job!

[Darkstone 201]

Thanks for the icon mate. I'll try to throw a bit more your way before the drive ends.

As usual, a big thank you to yourself, Whiplash and all others involved in maintaining the site.

I really hope you beat last years shameful display. 

Also, a big thank you to all the forum members. I've mentioned it before, but In these ridiculous times this place is very much a sanctuary (for me anyway). More so now than ever. Even the latest "Political" discussions have not damaged the community. This is a special place. We all should support it.

[Nightrain 6]

Donation sent, yay another badge, happy days :D

[Mr.AOR 52]

Done...

[heavyharmonies 169]

Well, 2 weeks into the donation drive and donations stand at 33%, which looks like it's keeping pace... but most of the regular and reliable supporters have already donated, so I expect things to trail off considerably.

Thanks to everyone who has participated and donated!

-Dan

[Rockhunter666 0]

Done. Thanks for keeping this awesome website running! 

[Darkstone 201]

18 hours ago, Rockhunter666 said:

Done. Thanks for keeping this awesome website running! 

Your first post and it's to announce a Gold donation. CHAMPION.

[heavyharmonies 169]

Well, we're right at the half way point of the annual donation drive, with another 3 weeks or so to go. We're at 45% of goal.

Pretty much all of the reliable regular supporters have donated, so now I get to play nagging grandpa and take aim at the worthless young whippersnappers who never do a danged thing around here. Clean up your room! Sit up straight! Shell out a few bux to support Heavy Harmonies!

*grumble* Back in my day, we made websites using chisels and stone tablets, working our fingers to to the bone, not like them newfangled appity thingies you have on your cellphones with your Myface and Spacebook! And we were thankful!

Dang kids...

[PeterS 33]

Well crept over the 50 percent, at least. Still disappointing we can't cover Dan's costs but it's the annual conversation about less people posting. Maybe one of us will win the lottery one day? 

Dan, think I should be over the 20 as sent a few smaller donations after getting paid. Could you take a look? 

[heavyharmonies 169]

Two weeks left to go in the annual donation drive. As Peter mentions above, we've crossed the 50% threshold, sitting currently at 58% of goal.

I greatly appreciate the support thus far. If you haven't yet contributed, please consider throwing $10 or $20 into the pot. It's only once a year and it keeps the lights on. For many years it wasn't a huge deal, as the eBay affiliate links on the main site covered any shortfall, but sadly that's no longer the case as (1) more and more people browse with adblockers enabled so Heavy Harmonies doesn't get credited with any commissions when people click through and buy something on eBay, and (2) eBay has cut their commission rates more than 80% from where they once were. I keep the links up because based upon analytics people find them useful... it's just that HH no longer gains much from them in the way of revenue.

I adamantly refuse to implement any anti-ad blocker nag screens or popups on the main site, as I find that practice to be annoying AF when I'm browsing, so I would be a hypocrite if I enabled such a thing here. It won't happen.

If you do use the main site a lot, and you don't mind disabling your ad blocker just for heavyharmonies.com, it would be greatly appreciated.

-Dan

[heavyharmonies 169]

One week remaining in the annual donation drive and we're at 63% of the goal to cover the out-of-pocket expenses in operating Heavy Harmonies.

My thanks to those who have donated thus far!

-Dan

[PeterS 33]

Have you given any consideration to moving to a regular payment system? 

I suspect most wouldn't notice a couple of dollars a month spread out over the year. 

https://www.paypal.com/us/brc/article/setting-up-recurring-payments-for-business#:~:text=Once you've turned on,> Payments > Manage automatic payments.

[heavyharmonies 169]

I appreciate the suggestion, but I'm not personally a fan of that approach. Too many potential downsides:

1. PayPal would still take their normal 30 cents + 2.9% cut, but now it would be on EVERY payment rather than just one payment, so that 30 cents becomes a much bigger factor. For example, on a single $20 donation, the total PayPal fees are $0.88. on 10 $2 payments, the total PayPal fees are $3.58, four times as much.

2. Too easily for people to forget that they subscribed to something 6 months ago and all of a sudden I'm dealing with chargebacks. No thank you.

3. A subscription model for anything implies more or higher levels of service and content, even if it's framed as a Patreon-like arrangement of showing support.

4. I don't want to be marketing/spamming/shilling site support year round. It's invasive and a pain in the butt for all concerned. I think that most people prefer that it not be a year-round presence.

[Darkstone 201]

I think the current system is more than adequate. If more regulars stepped up, the goal would be easily reached every year, no probs. I don't quite understand the reluctance to sling a few bucks Dans' way. This site is a haven for a lot of people on a daily basis.

[heavyharmonies 169]

It's the world we live in now, and it's been that way for about a decade now: Everything on the Internet is free.

It's the same mindset that expects free shipping on everything, because shipping things doesn't actually cost anyone anything... No, the seller/vendor is baking it into the price of the item. Trust me, they're paying for shipping.

Unfortunately, in the same way that small businesses can't compete with Amazon Prime or Walmart free shipping, corporate websites with large staffs and corporate relationships can offer a lot more than most fan-driven sites. So you end up with the "little guys" slowly but surely falling by the wayside or their content migrating to Facebook.

No biggie. It is what it is. It's an ever-changing world.

[Blue Charvel 0]

I'm in, let's rock!

 

[KarpetRydOFunk 174]

3 hours ago, Blue Charvel said:

I'm in, let's rock!

 

Uncle Pete? Is that you? 

;}

[heavyharmonies 169]

2 days left to go! Now in the home stretch. We're up to 69% of the annual goal (insert Geoffadillo comment here).

While I can't see reaching the goal, it would be awesome if we hit 75% or 80%.

Thank you to everyone who has donated thus far. It means a lot!

-Dan

[Blue Charvel 0]

On 10/27/2020 at 3:06 PM, KarpetRydOFunk said:

Uncle Pete? Is that you? 

;}

It might be... :-P

[Jez 20]

Sent Dan...sorry it's late 

[heavyharmonies 169]

And that's a wrap on the annual Heavy Harmonies donation drive. Thanks to the largest donation of the year coming in yesterday, we ended up at 76% of goal, which is better than we did in 2019.

My thanks and appreciation to all of you who contributed!!

I'll leave the donation links up for another week or so, just in case there are any stragglers.

Looks like we keep the lights on for at least another year.

-Dan

[nyoilers 45]

I made it ! Had to wait for the 1st of the month

[Darkstone 201]

78% isn't too bad I guess, but ultimately, it means that Dan is out of pocket for providing us with this site.

That's not right.

Edited November 3, 2020 by Darkstone