Squidoo Marketing Community needs a sponsor...

[John Dilbeck]

Good morning, fellow lensmasters.

I had hoped I would not have to make this announcement/request, but the time has come where I have to.

I need to find a sponsor for this community to cover the costs, or I may have to look for a buyer.

Since last September, my business has taken a real hit and I'm in a cashflow crunch right now.

Since I re-opened this community a few months ago, I've been paying Ning.com $25 per month to be able to post commercial links on the community and to control the advertising. If I had not done so, we would not be able to link to our sites, blogs, and lenses if they had commercial links on them. I ran into this problem the first time I started this community early last year.

I'm not trying to make a profit, but I do need to cover the costs.

So, I'm looking for a sponsor.

If I can't find a sponsor, I'll have to consider selling or closing the community, and I really don't want to do that.

I hope you understand.

All the best,

JD

[John Dilbeck]

Good morning, Joan and Julie,

I've removed the Adsense ads and added a new Sponsors box in the right column.

There is a brand new PayPal Donate button there, too.

If you donate $5.00, I'll be happy to link to your lensmasters page, your profile page here, or other appropriate link with your name as the link text.

How does that sound?

Thank you.

JD

[John Dilbeck]

Good afternoon, Julie.

I understand what you mean about not always being sure that you're seeing everything, especially on days when lots of people are commenting and talking in the forums.

When you start a discussion in the forum, you're automatically subscribed to email updates of other replies. If you didn't start it, you can Follow the thread at the bottom of the discussion page. You should see the option to Follow or Stop Following this discussion on the bottom of this page, right above the footer.

That's an easy way to follow discussions in which you are particularly interested.

I'm showing the last 20 things that happened in the community on the front page of the site, but below that is a section showing new forum discussions and new blog posts. That's one way to see what's new that you may have missed. They don't change as frequently as the top section.

It may be that all the latest activity at the top of the page is sometimes more confusing than helpful, but I don't know a better way to show it.

It is free to start a community on Ning, but if it contains commercial links and advertising, the site creator has to pay to control the advertising. If we want our own domain, we also have to pay monthly for that, as well, even if we register the domain independently.

So, I'm paying to control the advertising on this community and I'm paying more to control the advertising and use a domain on my other community at Murphy Connections, which is sponsored by locally-owned businesses in Murphy, NC.

I'm hoping to get out of this cash crunch soon, and then I'll pay the costs myself and be happy to do it. I'm just hoping this cashflow problem is only temporary.

In July, the NC General Assembly passed a new tax law that has really hurt my affiliate marketing business. Even though I was an Amazon.com associate for about 13 years, they dropped me with very short notice. Several other businesses did the same thing. That, coupled with the recession, really slashed my income. I've been working as quickly as I can to rebuild all my other sites and trying to find new income streams, but it's not going nearly as quickly as I'd hoped. I had some sites with over a 1,000 pages and all of them had links to Amazon.com on them.

I'm too stubborn to quit, so I'll keep working at it and hope for the best.

Sorry to get so long winded, but I decided you deserve to know what's going on if you're being asked to donate to support the community.

Thanks for your interest.

All the best,

JD

[Joan]

sounds good, John. I think we can come up with some cash to keep this site afloat. I really do!

[John Dilbeck]

Good morning, Joan.

Thank you for your support. I appreciate it.

I really don't want to make this a paid site. There are too many great lensmasters here who are very helpful and I know that lots of beginner and wannabe lensmasters read the site, too. I'd rather keep it open for everyone. That's the main reason I started this community, so we could help each other do better with our lenses and other online marketing.

I have to go offline for a few hours to attend to some other things in town, but I'll be back later today.

If enough people show an interest, then I'll remove the Adsense ads and put a sponsors box there. I'll add a PayPal donate button, too.

If enough people aren't interested, then we can discuss it here.

All the best,

JD

[Joan]

looks to me there are over 100 members. have you considered making this a paid site? I personally cannot do $25 a month right now, but surely as a group, we can come up with that.........each of us throwing a little in the pot........

so here is my challenge to the group, if this group has any value to you at all, donate $5 to keep it alive. If it has no value to you at all, maybe time to ask yourself why you are here???

[Joan]

John, is there a place we can click to pay via paypal? even the $5??

[John Dilbeck]

Good morning, Joan.

My initial thought about a sponsor was one person to pay the $25 per month and I would then replace the Google Adsense ads in the right column of every page with a text or graphic ad of their choice (within reason, of course - it would have to be socially acceptable and appropriate, no gambling, etc.).

I'm hoping I'll get through this cash crunch soon, but you just never know. If I could raise $25 for this month and another $25 for next month, then it would give me some breathing room. When my cashflow recovers, I'll be happy to pay the costs for the community, myself.

I would be happy to receive donations if anyone wanted, and yes, I'd reevaluate it at that point.

In fact, if several community members wanted to donate to cover the costs, I'd remove the Adsense ads on the pages and be happy to link to their sites/lenses as a token of appreciation.

All the best,

JD

[Joan]

John, give us some examples. like a sponsor to do what? just like a backer?

wonder if there are a bunch of us who could pay a one time $5 just to get things over the hump? there are a good many active lensmasters on this super ning. if 20 lensmasters donated $5 to keep it alive, that would cover it for about 4 months, and then reevaluate? right??

anybody else game for a $5 sponsorship?