Creating and maintaining this site takes a fair amount of time. It also takes money. Thus far, the time has come from my life, and the money has come from my pocket.
Based on recent suggestions, AtHomeDad.org is now accepting donations. If you'd like to help keep the site going, buy me a beer, or otherwise throw some money into the AtHomeDad.org hat, that would be great. Any amount at all would be very much appreciated. Click on the "donate" link above, or go here:
http://www.athomedad.org/donate
Thanks!
If you're logged in, your donation will be listed on the donors page. If you want to donate but don't want to be listed, just log out before donating.
Donations
Mike,
I know that folks voted for donations (instead of or with ads, I can't remember). However in case we don't all show up with our wallets, please make sure we know that. Nothing worse than "the other guy will take care of it."
Do you have a minimum amount you need? At least we can have a goal.
Josh
SAHD Since August 2005
No minimum
There's not a set goal in mind at this point, because there's a wide range of what could be done. Whatever is collected will go towards keeping the site running and to growing it. The first priority is simply paying the bills, maintaining the site, and adding new things as requested and as possible. If, beyond that, there's a surplus of money, I may spend it on things like advertising the site, sponsoring the convention, and planning for more powerful web hosting as our traffic grows.
I'll do what I can, and my hope is that others will do what they can and contribute whatever they think is reasonable. In the end, it shouldn't really matter what other people are doing. If you're getting something out of the site, you can decide if that's worth a few bucks to you and proceed accordingly. I suppose it's the PBS/NPR/Shareware/etc model of running a website. Let's try it for a while and see how it goes.
Thanks to those who have donated already!
-Mike
Tax Deduction
Guys:
If anyone would like to make a large donation, or any size donation that you would like to receive a tax deduction for, you can do so through the non-profit, Daddyshome, Inc. All you have to do is send a check made out to;
Daddyshome, Inc 8604 James Creek Drive, Springfield, VA 22152
Please place in the memo line, "athomedad.org website". Then I will send a donation receipt to the donor.
Mike Stilwell
Daddyshome, Inc.
DC Metro Dads
And then?
Thanks Mike.
And...presumably...you'll then send the donation to the site?
Just making sure....I know this was mentioned at one point, but we never talked about it in much detail.
Of Course
Where else would it go? I did bring this up more than once without much response. I thought this would be a good way to help out. However, if you don't, just let me know.
I know from my work with another nonprofit I help with, folks don't want to give too much if they can't at least get some kind of tax deduction. If you are looking for sustainability, it can help to be able to offer a way to donate and get a deduction as well. You know the old adage, that charity goes both ways.
Mike Stilwell
Daddyshome, Inc.
DC Metro Dads
Sounds fine to me
The main reason that I don't have a nonprofit set up is becuase it didn't seem cost effective at this point. Doing the set up, legal, and tax work involved far outweighs the tax savings (or additional donations, or however you want to look at it) that would be gained. If that changes in the future, we can do something more elaborate.
In the meantime, your offer sounds like a great solution. I appreciate it. Thanks!
I'd also encourage people to donate to the Daddyshome organization itself. It's a separate organization from this website, and one that's also worthy of your support.
Website income possibilities, domain email addresses?
Mike: how about offering email addresses on the athomedad.org domain for some sort of an annual fee? The address would just be an alias, individuals would have to provide their own actual inbox space. Small set up fee plus an annual fee, and perhaps a small fee if someone wants to change where the alias points to...
Just a thought...I have no idea if there would be enough interest to make it worth offering... If you do offer it, can I put in a request for andy@athomedad.org!
- Andy
____________________________________
KCDADs: www.groups.yahoo.com/group/kcdad/
13th Annual At-Home Dads' Convention: www.athomedadconvention.com
Maybe Google Applications?
In reference to the above comment, rather than expecting users to pay money just to have an alias, and then requiring them to modify their return address (Since people will send email to user@athomedad.org, but will receive a reply from user@somemail.com, and all subsequent emails will completely skip the paid for service) what about setting up Google Apps for the domain? I have this setup for my domain and it's very fast, and reliable. Easy to integrate with other Gmail accounts, all the features of Gmail such as huge disk space, searching mailboxes, IMAP (yay!) and POP access, etc. Combined with the reliability of Google servers. And you don't have to donate any disk space, just a DNS record.
Check into the legalities of selling an email address before doing this of course, since I don't sell addresses I am not aware of the regulations, however one possible way to bypass this would be by giving away FREE email addresses, as a gift for donations over a certain amount.
Just some thoughts, maybe it will help.
.distatica.