This is a little late, but I figure that it’s better late than never!
For full transparency, I’m just going to give a high level overview of the financial situation of lemmy.ca through June 2023, when I started to accept donations.
Total Expenses: $30.00
This includes all hosting fees, including backups, etc.
Total Contributions: $1,503.03
- $1,184.84 through LiberaPay
- $318.19 through OpenCollective
All contribution amounts are not including payment processor and/or OpenCollective fees.
Remaining Balance: $1,473.03
I plan on transferring the remaining balance to the new admin team, whenever they are ready to accept it.
Thank you to all that have contributed so far, I couldn’t have gotten the instance to where it is now without your generosity. I’m very excited to see what comes next and look forward to watching the instance grow more!
I see the .ca it this a Canadian instance? New to lemmy please be kind
Nice to still see you around. I guess the transition hasn’t fully completed yet. At the current rate of expenses, it appears we have quite a healthy reserve.
$30 seems too cheap. Is this SelfHosted? If so your electricity bill and ISP subscription should add much more.
tagging @[email protected] too because they asked the same question essentially.
the reason it was so cheap during June was that it used to be hosted on a VPS which i believe started with 4 CPU, and I kept upgrading it eventually to 8 CPU for the last few days. it then got migrated to a new dedicated server which is closer to around $150/month i believe.
Maybe keep some in reserve to cover for future growth?
The current funds are enough to operate it at it’s current capacity for ~11 months. Once we get to accepting donations again and figure out how to set up our accounting, I would definitely like to see a growing contingency reserve fund built up to be ready for future unexpected growth or unexpected slowdown in donations.
We will continue to be transparent in a similar format to this but split the remaining balance in a operating fund and reserve fund.
You probably want to encourage subscribing for a (low) monthly donations in order to have a continuous, predictable baseline.
That’s the plan!
Can I make a suggestion? I would like to contribute but I can’t afford a lot and frankly I’m a little embarrassed about how little I can afford. idk if your plans involve any sort of flair for people who contribute, but if it does, can you ensure there is a minimal amount people can contribute, that still gets their flair but doesn’t say they are cheap/poor? Thanks.
IMO, if you can’t afford it, don’t do it. What we really need is the ones of us who can afford a few bucks a month to actually give it. We should be able to get enough without having people who can’t afford it to have to pick this over more basic needs.