PGD PayPal Donation Box

[WILL]

One of the ways that Dom and I had discussed in the recent past to help provide funding for the running of the site and future PGD events was a PayPal donations box on the front page.

PGD has in the past, and present, gotten sponsorship from a number of notable software companies for prizes for the PGD Annual competitions, and it has turned out great! But that really only covers the majority of the prizes won in a once a year competition. There are still other costs in running the site as well as other events that would be great for PGD to be a part of.

Donations could be one of many ways to help curb the costs of hosting, which over time the need for more space and traffic will continue to grow. Honestly it would help with a lot more than just that, but it would be a great start.

If it is added, and it probably will be, there wouldn't be a lower or upper limit, so any amount would be acceptable. There is no fixed amount in mind here.

I'm curious to see what you guys have to say about this.

[wodzu]

Actually I would donate and let you decide what to do with the donation. Most of the points in the pool are interesting and its hard to decide which one is most important.

[Huehnerschaender]

Personally I've learned very much through this site. In fact, I was not able to code a simple pacman game when I started reading here a few years ago.

So... what we all know is, knowledge is expensive! Trainings and ressources are expensive, in whatever way you want to improve your skills. And it's not only the programming stuff I learned here. I also improved and practiced my english skills here *hehe*

PGD is a free site for all and the knowledge I got here came out of the whole community. I don't know if I could do the things I am able to do now without the help of all the people here. I guess not!

I would definetely donate an amount XY. Not to "pay back" for the things I have learned here, but to back up this source of knowledge for me and for all the others.

Cheers.

[JSoftware]

I would donate to PGD but I'm afraid Paypal would take too many of my money in vat/currency exchange. I'll just research my banks rates on foreign payments if you could be interested in a direct transfer?

[WILL]

Wow, it's great to see that you guys really want to help out. :clap:

Here is a question for discussion; Would you feel comfortable if we released what or how much was donated by whom?

I've seen how the SDL guys record donation money coming in and what they spend it on and they have a completely transparent system in place. You see what comes in and where it goes out. I was sort of thinking that this would be appropriate so you guys can really see what your money --collectively-- is going to exactly.

[JSoftware]

I would say, that I like the idea of seeing where the money go. Instead of putting names up you could just show a total amount of unspent donated money

[WILL]

Here is how the SDL people do it.

http://www.libsdl.org/finances.php

I kind of like this format personally. It very much resembles a banking record book or online statement.

There are 'Anonymous' donors in the list as you can see. I'd have to look into how PayPal processes incoming donations to get a better idea of how a person can opt-out to putting up their name. But I'm sure it's entirely possible if they prefer to go unnoticed.

[DarknessX]

I would definitely donate money to PGD! If I had spare cash... But that comes soon, as I just got a new job for the summer. Hopefully I can make some $$$ and pay for what needs to be payed.

[technomage]

I'll donate too.

I voted for hosting, but I really don't care waht it's used for

[WILL]

A little delayed but; Great to hear guys!

It would really help to keep PGD going without the need for Dom to have to dig so deep into his own pocket to do it. Plus perhaps the next few PGD Annual competitions would be able to afford a huge ad somewhere to attract attention for more competitors too...

There are lots of ideas... but I believe the ones that would get priority are the ones that would benefit PGD and it's community the most. Any ideas would be more than welcome, I'm sure.