[Harp-L] Harp-l 2016 Fundraiser

[Slim Heilpern <slim@xxxxxxxxxx>]

IMPORTANT: This post, while definitely meta discussion, has been approved by the list owner. Whatever you do, please do not respond to this post on harp-l. Instead, you may respond directly to myself (slim@xxxxxxxxxx) or directly to the list owner (harp-l-owner@xxxxxxxxxx).

As you may or may not know, harp-l was privately funded for many years. Beginning with the 2013 budget, Harp-L tried something new in the form of an annual fundraiser to offset the basic costs of keeping the list up and running and this has worked out very well. Please note that the real work, provided entirely by the list owner, has and continues to be done on a volunteer basis. The previous fundraisers have all been successful and now it's time for a repeat performance with regard to the 2016 budget. 

The time has come again for folks like me (and hopefully you) to step up and contribute to the basic cost of keeping the list alive. We are asking that those who can afford it and would like to help out donate $5 or $10 (max) for the upcoming yearâs expenses. 

To be absolutely clear, donations are voluntary and will not affect your status as a list member whether you contribute funds or not in any given year. Itâs perfectly OK to not make a donation.

The list owner has asked me to give fair warning that list traffic has been down this year compared to last and while heâs willing to continue for at least another year, if the quantity and quality of the threads keeps on shrinking, he may decide to take it down. So, if you value this list, please be sure to make use of it and contribute content when you can. Harp-l continues to represent a community of harmonica players, and personally, I would hate to see that connection disappear.

How to contribute to the fundraiser:

I have volunteered to be the middleman for donations. The preferred way to donate is via my paypal account (all major credit cards accepted):

To contribute $5 via paypal, click on this link: http://tinyurl.com/95dfp7b

To contribute $10 via paypal, click on this link: http://tinyurl.com/9oo2ss2

If you prefer to contribute by personal check, please contact me off list and I will send you the details of how to do that: slim@xxxxxxxxxx


More details:

Our goal for  2016 is $290 (less than last yearâs $360 as less is needed this year), all of which will go to cover operating expenses for 2016. I will send another notification once we have reached our goal. Any contributions received in excess of the goal will be applied to 2017.

$10 is the maximum individual contribution. Payments greater than that will be refunded in full (or in the case of a personal check, it will not be cashed).

As far as I know, your contribution is not tax-deductible, although Iâm not an expert on the subject.

At the request of the list owner, your donation details (such as your name, email address, how much you donated) will not be made public, not even to the list owner. However, I will post a summary of the amounts received on a monthly basis to the list until the goal is reached. In the interest of keeping this as simple and cost-effective as possible, weâre not setting up any kind of business account for the contributions and folks will just have to trust that I have no intention or reason to do anything with the money other than forward the funds to the list owner, who pays the bills. My role in this is strictly as a volunteer.

One final detail: During the first fundraiser there was some on-list discussion (and confusion) with respect to transaction fees when paying via credit card and the PayPal options to work around this. (Transaction fees are taken off the top of your contribution by PayPal). Please don't worry about the transaction fees as we're trying to keep this simple and I don't want to ask anyone to lie to PayPal as to the nature of their transaction. Rest assured, the transaction fee _will_ be covered by a matching donation, so your full contribution will be applied to the harp-l budget.

If you have any questions, please contact me off list: slim@xxxxxxxxxx

Thank you in advance for your support!

- Slim

www.SlimAndPenny.com