ernielist Posted December 23, 2008 Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 (edited) I have an idea that can help everyone get what they need for their cars. Leave the site as it is, charge a dollar a month access fee. Once the funding builds up to a decent level site administrators can purchase parts with the funding they have recieved and take some of the cash for a yearly operating expense, then we have a raffle and people get the parts they need for their cars. It would work because everyone contributing one dollar a month adds up really quick when you have a lot of members. A dollar a month won't hurt anyones pocket. You can submit a request for a certain part and be put on a list and when your number comes up the site buys you the part. Or we can have a raffle. I prefer a list, but whichever. You can choose the amount you wish to give every month as an option, or just pay the dollar access fee. I think parts should be classified as restoration parts not performance mods. Our goal is to keep these cars in this world and keep them running and looking good. If we all contribute and stick together eventually everyone can have what they need for their cars instead of letting them sit and decay because they can't afford to fix them. Contact could also be made with a vendor and a deal could be worked out because we would be buying parts from them often so we could get the parts at a discounted rate. This would also encourage additional membership to this site which would bolster financing as well. Just an idea. The site says we have upwards of 15,000 members....lets do the math here, if we have 15,000 members in one year at a dollar a year that $180,000 the site can generate. Put that in a compounded interest account and thats a lot of parts, and money left over to improve the site. As a community we could do great things for these cars and really bring them back into the limelight. This may even give us the ability to schedule events and such just for these cars. If we can bolster interest in the vehicles aftermarket vendors may take a second look and start to produce more parts and aftermartket mods. Our cars are listed as possible collectors items for the future as well! Edited December 23, 2008 by ernielist Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmyers151 Posted December 23, 2008 Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 (edited) That sounds like a good idea, and I second it, but there is one issue I can foresee. Yes, the site probably has around 15,000 members, but if you sift through the member link, you'll see that many have very few if any posts and have not been logged in, in years. These members will most likely not contribute and thus, no money will be made from them. It'd be a good idea to send out a site wide "feeler" email to each members email address to see how many would be interested. Those interested would click a link of some sort and they would be tallied. Those not interested in the site anymore can simply click a separate link that would remove their name and info from the database, effectively cleaning it of non-posting users. This would give us an accurate number on how many people will actually contribute. Edited December 23, 2008 by dmyers151 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ernielist Posted December 23, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 That sounds like a good idea, and I second it, but there is one issue I can foresee. Yes, the site probably has around 15,000 members, but if you sift through the member link, you'll see that many have very few if any posts and have not been logged in, in years. These members will most likely not contribute and thus, no money will be made from them. It'd be a good idea to send out a site wide "feeler" email to each members email address to see how many would be interested. Those interested would click a link of some sort and they would be tallied. Those not interested in the site anymore can simply click a separate link that would remove their name and info from the database, effectively cleaning it of non-posting users. This would give us an accurate number on how many people will actually contribute. Yea I figured there werent 15,000 active members, just using it as an example, I woudn't know how to send a sitewide email and I would want to spam everyone if I did. The site admin really needs to jump on that band wagon if they were interested. But lets say only 200 peeps were interested, thats still $2400 bucks a year the site could generate. That would pay for small items ya know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmyers151 Posted December 23, 2008 Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 Yeah, the email would be sent by the admin's as a group. I'm not sure how these websites work, I'm not a computer guy, but I'm sure if we got rid of all those non-posters, something would get faster. As I said though, its a great idea and I'd be willing to fork over my $ to be a contributing member. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ernielist Posted December 23, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 Yeah, the email would be sent by the admin's as a group. I'm not sure how these websites work, I'm not a computer guy, but I'm sure if we got rid of all those non-posters, something would get faster. As I said though, its a great idea and I'd be willing to fork over my $ to be a contributing member. Yea me too, but obviously not too many peeps are interested, think this thread was viewed 40 times since I posted and your the only one to reply lol. O well, you can have a great idea, but if you can't market it, it goes no where. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technology Posted December 23, 2008 Report Share Posted December 23, 2008 Here's the thing. 1)This site would become a "ghost town" of the internet, and a new one would start to replace it. The reason it's as big as it is is because it's free and there are a lot of people on here. 2) How do we know they will use the money for a good purpose. 3) It's MUCH better to have a "donations" button at the top of every forum and subforum, the home page, etc. Then if you donate, you gain access to a "supporter's forum" where we can post about people who haven't donated or something. Or at least be entered into a raffle which part of your donation will help pay for. The rest will go toward the cost of operating the site. 4)I should be the moderator of any supporter's forum incase one does get created. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ernielist Posted December 24, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 24, 2008 Here's the thing. 1)This site would become a "ghost town" of the internet, and a new one would start to replace it. The reason it's as big as it is is because it's free and there are a lot of people on here. 2) How do we know they will use the money for a good purpose. 3) It's MUCH better to have a "donations" button at the top of every forum and subforum, the home page, etc. Then if you donate, you gain access to a "supporter's forum" where we can post about people who haven't donated or something. Or at least be entered into a raffle which part of your donation will help pay for. The rest will go toward the cost of operating the site. 4)I should be the moderator of any supporter's forum incase one does get created. A ghost town over a dollar, nah I dont agree. But you might be right. And the money would be tracked by site admin who we would elect to have control over the cash flow and they would have to give us monthly reports and such. Its easy. It would be setup like an S-corp with a board of execs and we are the shareholders lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jspecgallant Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 Here is the bad thing about collecting money here on this site 1. Members will leave and find a new free site 2. The site is registered as a .com (in witch case it will need to report its earnings to the IRS) yes taxes will need to be paid 3. It is not registered as an .org site then you can set it up as a non profit company (but the members will need to set up charities to give money away to a needy group) Keep it the way it is, bud just do a contest that you pay money into ($1 max) then hold a raffle. Also get sponsors to donate prizes or services. Just my 2 cents Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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