ADMIN: Cauldron Annual Donation Drive -- The 2017 Edition

[RandallS]

It's that time again. It's time for The Cauldron's Annual donation drive. When we moved to a VPS many years ago our hosting costs jumped from about $200 a year to just about $850 a year (server costs plus a few dollars more for domain fees and the like). Two years ago, when Linode started to offer its backup service, we raised enough money to add that. Thanks to a number of members of The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum who made either annual or monthly donations, we have managed to pay the server bill every month when it is due on the 1st of the month. It's time to refill the till for our next year of hosting -- the alternative is TC disappearing from the Internet as with the Co-Hosts medical issues, they cannot afford to fund TC out of their own pocket. Thanks to reccurring monthly donations which we hope will continue, it currently looks like we only need to abou $520 -- in other words we are starting with over $300 in effective donations from members.

We'd really like to thank everyone who gave money for the server bills over the last year. Those who donated have made it possible for The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum to remain on the Internet from September 2016 to now. However, the account is bare and it's now time to raise money for the next server year. We need your donations to keep The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum's message board up. Payments are made via Paypal but you do not need a Paypal account to donate (unless you wish to set up a recurring donation subscription). There are two easy ways (and one harder way) you can donate.

OPTION 1: Make An "Anonymous" Donation in Any Amount

If you are not a member of the message board  -- or are a member but do not want a donor button to appear on your posts or wish to donate a non-standard amount, you can make an "anonymous" donation (which will not cause any "donor" notation on your posts) in any amount via the Paypal link below. You do NOT need a Paypal account to donate. After Paypal fees, we get at least 85% to 90% of the money you donate. This is the best way to donate for many people as it only happens once and you don't have to remember that you have a monthly (or annual) subscription coming out of your Paypal account.

Donate via Paypal Now 

OPTION 2: Message Board Member? Donate Through Your Settings:
          Get Bronze/Silver/Gold Donor Levels and Benefits

If you are logged into the message board, you can make a donation (via Donation Subscriptions in your Profile) at the Bronze Donor (US$5.00), Silver Donor (US$10.00), or Gold Donor (US$15.00) and get a special button that will appear on your posts as well have access to our Donor only areas, stop seeing most of the ads on our board, etc. These special benefits will last for one month (or one year if you elect the annual donation option) and can be renewed by extending your subscription. You can elect to set up a Paypal subscription that will automatically renew your donation each month or year until you cancel the subscription at Paypal. You can find the "Paid Subscriptions" link in your "Settings" menu on your profile.

Note: If you currently have a recurring monthly Donation subscription, you do not need to do anything to donate for 2016. Your current Donation subscription will continue until you cancel it (or your payment source disappears if you are paying with a credit card and forget to keep its expiration date, etc. current) at PayPal. However, if you believe you have a current donor subscription, please check your Paypal account to be sure it is still there -- Paypal has mistakenly terminated them much more frequently than anyone would like again this year -- almost as bad as a few years ago when over 60% of subscription terminations were random Paypal errors.

If you are a member of our message board (and are logged in), this link will take you directly to the Paid Subscription area of your Settings:

Donate via a Donor Subscription

OPTION 3: Want to Avoid Using PayPal? Donate Via a Postal Money Order

If you cannot (or simply do not want to) use Paypal, you can mail us a Postal Money Order (obtained from a US Postal Office) or an International Postal Money Order payable in US Dollars (obtained from your nation's post office). If you wish to make this type of donation, please PM me and I will tell who to make the money order to and give you an address to mail it to. Note that only Postal Money Orders can be accepted, no checks (or strange money orders from the supermarket).

If you are able to donate, please make a donation for 2017 as soon as possible -- right now would be great. The Cauldron's web site, message board, MUX, and other features depend on your donations to continue.

IMPORTANT NOTE

The Donation Notice at the top of the forum is manually updated, usually only once every 24-48 hours. This means your donation will not automatically appear immediately in the total donated listed in the notice.

[RandallS]

It's that time again. It's time for The Cauldron's Annual donation drive.

The 2017 drive has been running for almost 4 months now. This seems to be a bad year as it normally only runs for 6 to 8 weeks before we hit our goal. I like to thank everyone who has already donated -- $806 of donations have already been made.

We only need $44 to finish off the 2017 drive and keep the lights on here through August 2018. If you can donate some or all of that $44, we could close this drive now and all the annoying Donation drive banners could go away.

[RandallS]

We only need $44 to finish off the 2017 drive and keep the lights on here through August 2018. If you can donate some or all of that $44, we could close this drive now and all the annoying Donation drive banners could go away.

Success! Thanks to today's donations we beat our goal by about $12. Thank you one and all. The donation begging box and the donation begging popup on our website are now history.