Make donations easier to give

SQ · Post by SQ » Thu Oct 12, 2006 8:53 pm

This is kind of a little awkward, so sorry if it doesn't make much sense.

When you go to the "Donate" page in members main, it just has this huge lot of text that basically says "Make a pledge". And at the bottom it says "Would you like to make a pledge?"

And if you don't read in-between the lines, the less-literate of the community want to donate(but only once), so they'll just say "Okay, yeah, I'll make a pledge."

Because of this, a lot of the people I've at least talked to, have defaulted in their status simply because they did not know that pledging like that meant they were supposed to definately donate at that time, every time that time came around.

So, I am propositioning that you could either add a "One-time only" option to the "Choose a pledge type" part, so people don't feel like they're forced into some type of horrible commitment.

I mean, I donate every year or so, but it's varying amounts. And if I actually pledged, I'd totally be in the horrible default zone.

Being "focred" to donate a certain amount every time is kind of ridiculous. It's like some type of con for the .org to get money.

Alternatively, you could have somewhere at the bottom "Or you can donate through paypal without making a pledge by using these emails".

I know the emails and the mailing addresses are listed within the pledge page, but the pledge page is just that - a pledge page.

Not a "Here's how you can make a donation" page, like I believe it should be.

I think you're losing a lot of one-time donators by these scary-looking page. And considering how many newbs/noobs kind of breeze through here that are more or less not very smart with where there money goes on the internet... That's a lot of money the .org could be getting. Instantaneously, rather than through the whole "OMG MAKE A PLEDGE!!" thing.

I think if the pledge nags through the downloading links were changed, too. You know, so it says "Or make a one-time donation and have the naggy stuff disappear for a year", you'd also get a lot more actual donations rather than defaulted users.

BasharOfTheAges · Post by **BasharOfTheAges** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 10:49 pm

The default option for donation is one time only. I'm not sure what people are doing wrong, but by simply doing nothing but accepting then paying they shouldn't have any sort of problem.

Lyrs · Post by **Lyrs** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 11:31 pm

You can't have my $1. Not that you want it or anything.

Shazzy · Post by **Shazzy** » Fri Oct 13, 2006 5:51 pm

Annual (or One-time) - This donation type means that you will be giving an amount to the site in one lump sum when the pledge is made. You will be sent a donation reminder the following year, but you are not obligated to respond to it.

SQ · Post by SQ » Fri Oct 13, 2006 8:04 pm

I'm stupid, then. Don't mind me. X|

JaddziaDax · Post by **JaddziaDax** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 2:51 am

I'd rather donate without pledging...

i donno... even if it means annual or whatever... :/
the pledge system has constantly made me hesitant cause it seemed confusing to me :/

so SQ might have a bit of a point...

BasharOfTheAges · Post by **BasharOfTheAges** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 10:13 am

I'm not sure the actual point of pledging then donating is... what with paypal and all. Is it so when someone that's sending real money donates they can get their benifits in the time between when they pledge and when the money actually gets credited to them?

Shazzy · Post by **Shazzy** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 10:24 am

JaddziaDax wrote:I'd rather donate without pledging...

i donno... even if it means annual or whatever... :/
the pledge system has constantly made me hesitant cause it seemed confusing to me :/

so SQ might have a bit of a point...

I think this is the point: you either give one pledge annually, or you give the same amount of money in smaller amounts over the year. If you promise to give $100 in quarterly amounts, the Org doesn't want you giving $50 and then bailing out. If you don't want to worry about a pay schedule, then just give $100 at the start of the year.

Zarxrax · Post by **Zarxrax** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 11:02 am

I agree the whole pledge thing is rather confusing! On most sites that ask you to donate, they simply have a little paypal button that you click on, and thats it! The whole pledge idea can be confusing, because I had honestly never even encountered it before I saw it here at this site. I always do the Annual pledge because I am definately not going to get myself into a committment where I have to give something at a particular time--I just don't know what my assetts are going to look like in the future.

I would suggest take the current pledge stuff and replace the page with a very simple page that shows you how to make a 1-time donation through paypal. And then at the bottom of that page, have a link to the old page where they can choose to make a pledge over a period of time. I think this would simplify things a lot for people, and cut down on the defaults.

I honestly never liked the idea of defaulting, because a lot of the time I believe people default not because they are trying to scam the system or anything, but because they just didn't understand what was going on. This is particularly a problem for people who may not have english as their first language.

deadharbor · Post by **deadharbor** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 9:58 am

Really? The default is one-time? I wanted to donate only one-time but I couldn't find the option. So I thought nevermind, I'll make a pledge then, after all it's only once every year.

So I made a pledge and went to donate via paypal, but my donation was rejected because it's by debit card. I have no way of transferring funds to my paypal account because I don't have a U.S. bank account so debit card is the only way. Now I can't make a donation and I'm going to get defaulted soon.

I think this pledge thing is really odd. First time I see it. I make a lot of one-time donations to many sites even though I'm still a student because I have a debit card and it's convenient. I was scared off many times by this pledge thing because it's a huge commitment for a teenager like me but I finally caved. Now I can't even send the money.

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Make donations easier to give

Make donations easier to give

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