[Noisebridge-discuss] Fundraising and membership at NB, a touch of history

[Sai Emrys]

On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 2:50 PM, Rachel McConnell <rachel at xtreme.com> wrote:
> We already do have the concept of affiliate membership, small m.  You
> just start paying some amount you're happy with monthly, and call
> yourself that.  Boom, done.  There's Paypal links on the wiki which I
> mentioned earlier in this thread.

FWIW, I agree with all you wrote except this bit - and that's only for
behavioral economics reasons.

Yes you *can* do this, but it's just not a salient and supported thing to do.

I think Steve is right that having something simple to make it a more
obvious and easy choice - i.e. putting a paypal *subscription* link up
and giving people some cheap token of membership in return - would be
a good idea. Easy to do, doesn't disrupt the current process in any
way AFAICT, cheap, should be effective.

Most people IME - hackers included - tend to drastically underestimate
the impact that these "superficial" changes of a process can have on
how much people will follow through.


Who has access to the paypal account to be able to create subscription
buttons? AFAICT this is the only thing that blocks implementing
Steve's idea immediately.


Another thing that might help people choose to become members is to
offer some simple token of membership, like a lapel pin or card,
that's not available for straight sale. It works decently for my
nonprofit. Yes it's trivial and superficial. But it works.

FWIW, here's the pricing I got when ordering for the LCS (I'm pretty
sure this is the best available short of massive bulk order):

"300 - 1 inch hard-enamel cloisonné lapel pins are $0.89 each
The one inch mold charge is $45
Shipping is $14.00
The total cost is $326.00"

So basically they're $1.30 per for very high quality pins. Worth it
financially if it helps push even one more person into becoming even a
half-price member.

If someone wants to design a suitable NB pin - I can provide specs but
I suck at art - I can probably get the same deal from the same
supplier. Email me offlist if you have the photoshop skillz.

Thanks,
- Sai