New Donation system.

[Rob]

Hey everyone,

Our new Donation system is now up and running. You can access it by going here: http://www.teenhelp.org/donate . As I'm sure many of you can appreciate, the last few months have been really tough for the site, having to rebuild everything after the catastrophe at New Year, but we're eventually getting back on track, and would really appreciate the financial support of anyone willing to offer it. This will help to pay for all of the continuing costs of running the site such as the server costs, Forum updates and Chat Room licence. It will also allow us to provide some of the new features we have in mind for the future. Any donation great or small is hugely appreciated!

Differences

There are a number of key differences to this system from the previous one:

1. A brand new set of donation incentives is available, with a few more already in the works.
2. The entire process will be automated. There will be no need to forward PayPal receipts and for you to wait around for days for us to add the incentive. With exception to a small number of incentives, you will receive them immediately.
3. Incentives are individual rather than cumulative. You will be able to choose the specific incentives you get and only pay for these rather than being given everything we want to give you in the order we want to give you them.
4. Incentives will be renewable. To keep incentives you will have to renew them annually. Prices have been reduced a little to reflect this, but this should hopefully allow a more regular income for the site.

As a result of these changes (particularly the third, since donations now expire), previous donations incentives will not be re-added.

Postal donations

We are not currently accepting postal donations, but should hopefully be soon.

Please read the information carefully

Some of the information on the Donations page is very important. For example, the "Donate" button at the top of the page will not give you any incentives, and the Sponsor/Deluxe Sponsor incentives have different versions for staff and non-staff because if you choose the wrong one your account could be detrimentally affected.

I do hope you seriously consider donating for this great cause! If you have any problems or question, please let me know.

[✖Ice✖]

They expire after a certain time?

[eunoia]

Originally Posted by EDGE

They expire after a certain time?

Yep. That's what it says.

Donations are now renewable. Incentives last a year (?) and you have to renew them the following year.

The new system is pretty cool, though. I like it.

[✖Ice✖]

If you donate 15 now and 15 later does it add up?

[udontno]

This is exciting. I plan to donate after working some this summer. :-) Are we going to have a Donors Forum again?

[eunoia]

Originally Posted by EDGE

If you donate 15 now and 15 later does it add up?

I don't think so, although someone with a better grip on how the new systems works would have to confirm that. That said, there are quite a few incentives that "cost" $15. And if you aren't bothered with incentives, you can just donate however much you want.

[Rob]

Originally Posted by EDGE

If you donate 15 now and 15 later does it add up?

"Adding up" doesn't make sense in the new system, since this system works more like a shop than the whole 'competitive' system we had before. You pick an item and you pay for it (or alternatively you just choose an amount to donate and you don't get any incentives for it).

Originally Posted by udontno

Are we going to have a Donors Forum again?

We had one up until this morning, when I deleted it. It was never used before, so unless there's a huge outcry from our donors about it, it's just clogging up space unnecessarily.

[udontno]

Originally Posted by Rob

We had one up until this morning, when I deleted it. It was never used before, so unless there's a huge outcry from our donors about it, it's just clogging up space unnecessarily.

I was just curious about it. I'd never donated before, so I wasn't sure how popular it was. I know it was one of the incentives that seemed to be pushed before, however.

[Gidig]

Originally Posted by udontno

I was just curious about it. I'd never donated before, so I wasn't sure how popular it was. I know it was one of the incentives that seemed to be pushed before, however.

It has the same amount of activity whether it's there or not

[Melody Pond]

I was just wondering does paypal convert the money for UK donors?
What rates does it use?

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Razzmatazz Rach

I was just wondering does paypal convert the money for UK donors?
What rates does it use?

Paypal converts it to UK money. I was going to buy something to get the cool donor badge, but I only had £4.00 in my account! So I put that into Paypal and it came out to $6.80 or something... It just uses the current rates, that change all the time.

[Deep Brown Eyes]

According to Paypal:

The currency conversion rate will be displayed each time you:

• Send a payment in a non-local currency
• Accept and automatically convert a payment to your primary currency
• Withdraw funds in a non-local currency to your local bank account
• Transfer funds between currency balances

Double-check the rates with www.xe.com if you like...not that it'll make a difference

[Ellie]

Awh I actually miss my old donor badge, I'm definitely going to be donating just to have that back....will my whole student loan cover it

[soul]

I'm so happy to finally be able to donate. One suggestion I have is having like a ticker/ measure of TH's funds with a goal amount and such things. I think it might encourage people to donate and at the same time let those who have donated see their contribution make a difference as the funds grow. Just an idea ^^.

[Gidig]

Ooh, I really like that idea, even though I'm not sure how it work, like what exactly the ticker would be for. But Mimi perhaps put it in the suggestions thing?

[soul]

I would be a ticker to measure how much has been donated and how close we are to whatever 'goal' amount is put in place. However, by ticker I just mean any visual aid to measure the progress.