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.






