The Data Is What The Data...

[+ Funguy]

Imagine!!!! I go out of town for 2 weeks and I come back to a thread which has nothing to do with sex or politics.

 

I have spent considerable time reading thru the entire thread and, tho I am now blind (not having my computer glasses), I am in support of support.

I will put forth in the $25 monthly category, I just have to get arranged in deciding which contribution route to take.

 

Thank you, Steven, for your work and thank Daddy for his work.

[gallahadesquire]

I prefer to keep my donation anonymous, but I shall be a forum supporter, if I can find that old jockstrap.

[+ stevenkesslar]

I prefer to keep my donation anonymous, but I shall be a forum supporter, if I can find that old jockstrap.

 

I know I've been suffering from VD (verbal diarrhea) but let me stress this point: all donations and pledges will be confidential unless you want to state it. I have given to lots of causes and as you all know lists of donors on things like college fundraising drives, etc. are quite common. This is a matter of personal preference and different people have different feelings. In a case like this where we don't honestly need a huge percentage of participation (my college for example has a goal of 50 % alumni participation, which is extremely high), I think the easiest, most pragmatic, and most sensitive approach is to just avoid public lists.

 

A number of you have already emailed me today either to make monthly pledges or to inform me about one time donations you already sent or plan to send. All that information will be private although you are welcome to post something here and I actually encourage you to so if you wish because it helps to keep the momentum going. Also I am going to talk to Daddy and we'll figure out a way to keep reporting and updating on overall progress toward the goal and how that compares to revenue needed to keep the site running as is and also make improvements. So far just since I posted this morning there are over $250 in monthly pledges! :)

 

I've said this already but I think this is a really good reality test of "capacity" both in terms of how many people will give something like $25 or $50 monthly and also how many people feel comfortable long-term making voluntary annual membership donations of $5 a month. My gut feeling is that, short-term, it will be easier to find a couple dozen people to give $25 or $50 a month than it will be to find a couple hundred or more to give $5 a month voluntarily. But I also think that long-term the latter is a reasonable goal as we build capacity. For now, all of this will be kept as private as possible other than somebody needs to keep track of how far we are to our goal and with your permission I've volunteered for that short-term job.

 

Thanks guys.

[+ Funguy]

My local radio classical music station has pledge drives and at various levels of contribution they send CD's as a "thank you." Will we get some, too? With Steven, maybe?

[+ stevenkesslar]

My local radio classical music station has pledge drives and at various levels of contribution they send CD's as a "thank you." Will we get some, too? With Steven, maybe?

 

Ha ha.

 

Read one of my (albeit endless) earlier threads. I personally love the idea of figuring out a "rewards" strategy to encourage donations. Some of you guys are way more shy about this anonymous donation stuff. i have no shame about the idea that I am 100 % whore and if somebody gives a nice fat donation they can have anything they want from me - except for my boyfriend Kenny, of course. Kenny belongs totally to me.

[+ glennnn]

I just set up an automatic monthly contribution through my bank and it was really easy. I just treated it like any other bill (although I had to use glennnn as the account number it insisted I provide). Let them find an envelope and stamp! This forum is far too important to me personally and to many, many others struggling to find their place in society to let it slip away. I come here to laugh and to cry. I come here to get help, and more important, to help others. You have all become my family and I would be very sad to lose touch with you.

 

This is a unique online forum for our community and must be preserved!

[+ stevenkesslar]

I just set up an automatic monthly contribution through my bank and it was really easy. I just treated it like any other bill (although I had to use glennnn as the account number it insisted I provide). Let them find an envelope and stamp! This forum is far to important to me personally and to many, many others struggling to find their place in society to let it slip away. I come here to laugh and to cry. I come here to get help, and more important, to help others. You have all become my family and I would be very sad to lose touch with you.

 

This is a unique online forum for our community and must be preserved!

 

Thanks Glennnn! You get an extra "N" for Nifty.

 

If you don't mind me asking, which bank is it? I know this works at B of A and Chase. Somebody messaged me and said this doesn't work st Wells Fargo. I think it helps to know which major banks work and which ones don't, unless you bank at a small local bank and don't want to share. Thanks!

[+ Phactor]

If you don't mind me asking, which bank is it? I know this works at B of A and Chase. Somebody messaged me and said this doesn't work st Wells Fargo. I think it helps to know which major banks work and which ones don't, unless you bank at a small local bank and don't want to share. Thanks!

 

Surprised to learn a user is having difficulty at Wells Fargo... they are a major banking player. Here's a link to their bill pay system instructions: https://www.wellsfargo.com/online-banking/how-it-works/. If he's open to it, I'd be happy to help him. It could be the account type that doesn't offer Bill Pay.

 

We know from others that BoA, Chase, and Capital One all offer automatic recurring payments. I've had checking/deposit accounts with CitiBank, U.S Bank, PNC Bank, and Fifth Third, and BMO Harris, all of which offer the service. My credit union also offers the service.

 

I converted way back in the late 90's when they first started offering the service. I haven't physically written a check since at least 2001.

[+ stevenkesslar]

Surprised to learn a user is having difficulty at Wells Fargo... they are a major banking player. Here's a link to their bill pay system instructions: https://www.wellsfargo.com/online-banking/how-it-works/. If he's open to it, I'd be happy to help him. It could be the account type that doesn't offer Bill Pay.

 

We know from others that BoA, Chase, and Capital One all offer automatic recurring payments. I've had checking/deposit accounts with CitiBank, U.S Bank, PNC Bank, and Fifth Third, all of which offer the service.

 

I converted way back in the late 90's when they first started offering the service. I haven't physically written a check since at least 2001.

 

Thanks for the very informative update. Like you said this is a pretty standard feature these days. I did help one person walk through this today and if anybody wants to do it but has a problem setting it up PM me and I'll try to help or find somebody who can.

 

The goal for the monthly donation pledges is $750 and as of right now in one day we are about half way there. Great job guys!!!!

[+ glennnn]

Thanks Glennnn! You get an extra "N" for Nifty.

 

If you don't mind me asking, which bank is it? I know this works at B of A and Chase. Somebody messaged me and said this doesn't work st Wells Fargo. I think it helps to know which major banks work and which ones don't, unless you bank at a small local bank and don't want to share. Thanks!

 

Union Bank of California. Couldn't find a way to email it, but I used Wink, Wink, Nod, Nod and the Las Vegas address on Tropicana to set up a regular payee, and expect the check to be sent soon.

[+ José Soplanucas]

Surprised to learn a user is having difficulty at Wells Fargo... they are a major banking player. Here's a link to their bill pay system instructions: https://www.wellsfargo.com/online-banking/how-it-works/. If he's open to it, I'd be happy to help him. It could be the account type that doesn't offer Bill Pay.

 

We know from others that BoA, Chase, and Capital One all offer automatic recurring payments. I've had checking/deposit accounts with CitiBank, U.S Bank, PNC Bank, and Fifth Third, and BMO Harris, all of which offer the service. My credit union also offers the service.

 

I converted way back in the late 90's when they first started offering the service. I haven't physically written a check since at least 2001.

 

I am the one having problems with WF. I do use their bill pay system, and I can send a payment to Daddy, but I cannot set a recurrent payment. So I will be donating annually, because I am not going to be doing it manually every month.

[+ Lance_Navarro]

I'm gonna go ahead and set up a $20/monthly recurring contribution. I spend over 10 times that on advertising so it's a no brainer that I need to show some love and support to this website which has served as a valuable support to my livelihood as well as the entertainment and education factor. I hope that other escorts will show some love as well, even if it's just $5 or $10 a month. With all the censoring on other sites, this remains a refreshingly honest space.

[oceansunshine]

I'm gonna go ahead and set up.........With all the censoring on other sites, this remains a refreshingly honest space.

For me this is absolutely true for some of us "older" non-escorts, etc too. This community dialog is certainly appreciated by me (and I sure others) esp having a helping community message-board for those of us that found ourselves living in fear about our orientation. Then discovering a site like this that helped at least me "come-out", to not live in fear about it(as many of us baby boomers have in the past based on family, religion, business and goverment social acceptance we found ourselves in growing up in the 50's thru not too long ago).

 

I know, from comments about wanting to support the site but wanting to do so without "goverments, etc" being able to trace back to them their donation, that fear still exists about being outed by some (for many possible totally valid reasons/understandings). Fears about family/friends/business acceptance still happen for most of us in some way. For me, while "out" to all of family and non-professional friends, even I find myself still uncomfortable in some business settings. I'm sure this community helps in some way for many of us baby boomers at the many different closeted stages in of coming out, which almost at times seems never ending dealing with some non-personal business settings, etc. So to Daddy - Thanks for your efforts which I'm sure has been both an economic and sweat equity huge effort.

 

I'd also bet this site helps younger adults as they deal with "coming out" at home, church, school, work, etc....the good news is that the world is in some areas much more accepting, although much forward progress is still needed.

 

So IMHO because this message-board provides value to each of us, with all of understanding that acceptance progress is still needed, I feel we all owe Daddy a commit to at least fund some at least a bit of our own usage of this message-board with some dollar amount (that is rightly different for each of us(only each of us can figure what each of us feel is fair and anything is better than nothing) as an ongoing annuity (even if its a small amount on a semi-regular monthly, quarterly or yearly basis).

 

Thanks for reading.....and just ignore if I've bored you; but hope not as I think insuring this site is funded properly without an undue burden is important to many of us, in ways none of us can fully realize.

 

Thanks again the the Admins of this site and Daddy,

 

Doug

[+ glennnn]

Glad to hear from you @oceansunshine . I think we have a lot in common. Thank you for helping out and for encouraging others to do so, too. Feel free to PM me if you ever need help or want to chat

 

 

Glennnn

[+ stevenkesslar]

Just an update folks.

 

As of tonight 15 wonderful people have set up monthly donations totalling $480 a month. Most of them are for $25, but several are for $50. As I said earlier in this thread, my goal is to raise $750 per month for ONE YEAR for supporting Daddy's efforts and the forum this way. The majority of these donations are through bank bill pays, meaning Daddy (or more precisely, WinkWinkNodNod, LLC) will get a monthly check mailed to him from the donor's bank. But several people are doing it their own way: an annual donation, or a monthly check or quarterly check or money order via snail mail, or some other payment system instead of their bank. Mostly it is based on concerns about confidentiality. In the end, money is money, and it supports this website.

 

Meanwhile, a handful of people have also PM'd me to let me know they sent $60 via email or mail or some other payment platform as a VOLUNTARY annual membership fee equal to $5/month.

 

I'm pretty sure Daddy knows about donations I don't know about and I know about donations he doesn't. Right now I am avoiding comparing notes with him because I feel somebody other than him should be doing the groveling and begging and cock sucking (oops, I didn't say that!) ;) Plus I figure it is way easier for you all to tell me to go fuck myself (which I kind of enjoy) as opposed to telling Daddy to go fuck himself. And please, let's not get Bozo involved in this. He's a sweetie, but as I said in a different thread the whole sex with Bozo thing already led to one guy vomiting today. :eek: (And fuck you Lookin. I did burn the red pubic hair out with a torch and it ruined the whole god damn carpet).

 

Anyways, back to business. To reach the $750 goal we need about 10 more people to give $25 a month for the next year. And then once we get that nailed down I will ask others to consider $5 a month or $60 a year as a VOLUNTARY membership fee. As I said earlier the goal is to find 50 people that will do that which will raise $250 a month.

 

So, bottom line, we are now about half way to the total goal of $1000 a month. For those of you that have given and pledged, THANK YOU. For those of you who are considering it, please do so and send me a PM letting me know what feels comfortable for you. For those of you who haven't considered this yet, please do.

[Guest Ace]

Sorry I'm late coming to this party.. (My "other life" has been consuming a LOT of my time lately).

Taking some time out today, naked & having cocktails with "The SUSAN LUCCI of Daddy's Reviews", (Dane Scott) & we've both decided we're "IN".

[Guy Fawkes]

The webmaster reports that receiving money through popmoney is having problems. We'll report the status of a transaction when it completes.

 

We've had a successful deposit via Google Wallet. (Fastest! Thank-you Dan)

We've had a successful deposit via Amazon (Thank-you TR)

We've had a billpay check (Thank-you Practor)

Several envelopes via snail mail that I have to go through (Thank-you!)

[Guy Fawkes]

The 2nd Popmoney payment was stopped so we won't know if it would have gone through or not.

[+ Eric Hassan]

Okay, I'll go there.

 

Data geek to data geek, several things jump out at me.

 

I'll start with the question: what caused the one month spike into a sustainable level? If I had to guess, it was that the controversy surrounding Rentboy led to more eyeballs on your site, briefly, and that caused a one month spike in income through Flirt for Free. Or maybe it was just a fluke.

 

Either way, that one month is irrelevant. The pattern is clear. 15 of 16 months are at or under the "sustainable" level, so this is not a sustainable business based on THIS model. It has nothing to do with Rentboy, or EOY, or recession. It is just not a sustainable model as currently structured.

 

The other thing that is clear is that making it a a sustainable model is NOT a big deal. We are talking about a matter of hundreds of dollars a month, maybe at most $1000 if you go to the worst months, like this one.

 

The better model that makes the most sense to me is a "supporter" model much like what people do for art museums, hospitals, churches, and of course, whores. But let's not talk about whoring or be very specific about how we could all support this site. I know from past discussions you don't want to get within a mile of anything that creates even the appearance that this is a website like Rentboy, which was alleged to have collected money for certain "bad" things. There is nothing "bad" about being part of a loving and caring community like this one.

 

My view is this, at the risk of sounding self-serving. I just got back from Las Vegas, where I easily spent $1000 to bring my 94 year old Dad to visit his dying son. I've been coming to Vegas regularly to help care for my brother, so when I add up the gas and the food I buy and cook for him and his wife to make their life easier that's hundreds of dollars. I spend $80 a month (along with two other brothers who do the same) to pay for Visiting Angels to go to my Dad's house once a week. About $30 a month of my cell phone bill pays for my Dad's cell phone service on a monthly basis. I do these things monthly or at least regularly because it helps sustain people I care about, and it frankly costs very little in whore money. The bumper sticker is "I am my brother's keeper."

 

This website obviously provides tremendous value to a lot of people. Glennnnnnnnn is the most recent one who brought this up after the Palm Springs event. Several kind souls donated money so that Guy could attend that event. Before that, several other kind souls donated money based on a special request.

 

I would humbly suggest that we simply come up with a PERMANENT model that sustains this website by asking a limited number of people to make regular (e.g. monthly) sustaining pledges. That way we don't have to make these regular or irregular pleas for help. I would be happy to make a pledge, that could be automatically deducted from a credit card monthly, or using any other of a number of simple financial mechanisms, and I am 100 % sure others would do so also. I find tremendous value in this site, and it has absolutely nothing to do with any financial benefit I derive from it, and it certainly has nothing to do with prostitution. It is like a Gay Facebook to me. There is nothing wrong with or illegal about supporting a Gay Facebook for slightly perverted folks like me. There would be a tremendous hole in this community if the website that built it suddenly went away.

 

Are there other people out there like me that feel that we can't afford to lose this website and are willing to put a little bit of their money where their mouth is?

 

Count me in for a monthly pledge. I think having a permanent option to support the website is a great idea. Like @stevenkesslar, I find this site to be of tremendous value, and I'd be happy to support.

[LADoug1]

Who is Bozo if I may ask?

[+ stevenkesslar]

Here's the way I got to $1000. If you multiply 20 donations of $25 to $50 I month I took an average of $37.50 a month, so that gets you $750 a month. If you multiply 50 donations of $5 a month that gets you $250. That adds up to $1000 a month. The reason I chose $1000 is if you look at the graph Daddy posted at the start of this thread that is what is needed to fill the revenue gap to support the MESSAGE FORUM in the worst months. In other words, $1000 is enough to get a safety net in place for the next year while a longer term set of solutions is researched and set up.

 

Hey folks. I wanted to update you all on the status of our fundraising effort.

 

As of right now I know of 21 forum members who have made "monthly" pledges totaling $735 a month. I put "monthly" in parenthesis because some of you will be sending quarterly checks by snail mail, for example, but the majority of those of us that made pledges will be doing it automatically monthly through their bank. A few other forum members have stated they are making monthly pledges but I don't know for how much (yet).

 

I have intentionally avoided much contact with Daddy about this because I thought he should not have to be in a position of asking for money. I am guessing some people have contacted him directly or simply sent him a donation.

 

So, I think at this point it is time to declare victory toward reaching the first goal of $750/month in larger donations. THANK YOU!

 

http://i.imgur.com/1gJ5VQZ.gif

 

Of course, there is no reason we can't exceed our goal. So I'm asking each of you to think about whether you can pledge $25 a month and if so let me know by private message by Sunday. There are multiple easy ways to do this automatically like through your bank or Google if you don't mind letting Daddy know your name. If you need complete confidentiality that's easy, too - just mail a monthly or quarterly donation. Think about it.

 

As I mentioned when we started the second part of my goal is to find 50 people that will donate $5 a month or make a one-time contribution of $60 a year. In my mind this is a way to test support for a "voluntary" membership fee. I stress the word "voluntary" because I think that there is an almost 100 % consensus that the idea of a "mandatory" membership fee is overkill and is unnecessary. So far 7 other forum members have already done this, so we already have a head start.

 

I personally think this exemplifies the true spirit of this forum at it's best. It is one for all and all for one and those of us who can help will, but nobody is asking for or deserves "special privileges" or to be viewed as better than anybody else. Except, of course, for Bozo, who I lost my virginity to, and who has now tragically abandoned me, and Kenny, who I plan to marry someday. And Bigvalboy, who I secretly lust for, even though he'll have nothing to do with me.

 

Well, that probably means it's time for me to shut my mouth. Please think about whether you can make a $25 pledge. Next week I'll start asking others to consider a $5 a month contribution. And if you have contributed, THANK YOU!

 

Oh, and have a great weekend!

 

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-V9U__gBwUj0/U6aIAddr8VI/AAAAAAAB4QE/w2EPo5526qI/s1600/gif12.gif

 

(Actually maybe it's time to open my mouth).

 

http://www.sherv.net/cm/emoticons/shocked/shocked-smiley-emoticon.gif

[+ glennnn]

Come on, everybody! Let's alleviate these financial issues and get back to talking about sex.

[AndreFuture]

I don't know why I'm only now seeing this thread. I didn't get through an the posts but will look over my finances as to whether I can be a regular contributor. As I'm still an unknown in this world, I'm barely breaking even after advertising and supplies.

[+ glennnn]

I don't know why I'm only now seeing this thread. I didn't get through an the posts but will look over my finances as to whether I can be a regular contributor. As I'm still an unknown in this world, I'm barely breaking even after advertising and supplies.

 

It's okay, if you need to watch your own bottom line right now! I know I speak for Kesslar, too, when I say each of us should do only what we can. I'm at a place in my life where helping out is no sacrifice. I don't mean to shame anyone. I appreciate your comments and understand your situation.

[+ José Soplanucas]

I love the idea of the new mini avatar for the supporters. It is nice to see how many of us are involved.