Forum advertising and sponsorship to raise moeny for charity

[FabianPattberg]

Dear members,

I am thinking of adding advertising and forum sponsorship to the forum to give something back to good causes. We are always talking about giving something back and making a difference. I also know that money is not the answer but it is a start to make a change and it is important to support the charities which are already doing great work to drive sustainability issues.

This advertising money would then be used to raise money for a charity on a monthly basis.

I was thinking of adding Google Adsense (www.google.com/adsense) ads throughout the forum, forum sponsorship for the individual forums ( Climate Change Forum, etc) by organisations and the possibility for members to donate directly via a donate button.

To make this totally clear, I would not take any money for myself but everything would go to the charity the members will vote on every month. Members could nominate charities, etc. which they feel should receive the money of this particular month.

Please let me know what you think of this idea by replying to this thread.

Regards,
Fabian

[Rebecca]

Good idea.

[alicecasey]

I think it all depends on the way you would have to display the ads- at the moment the forum looks a very trustworthy source of information- it has a good, open image.

I would be concerned that an ad-presence on the site would perhaps make people wary that the content they are reading may not be entirely impartial (especially as google ads tailor their ads to the subject matter of the forum- you probably won't have control over who can advertise on the site.)

In principle I think its a good idea/good way of raising money for charity- just depends how much control you have over it...

[FabianPattberg]

Hello Alice,

This is exactly what I was concerned about. But google has the possibility to restrict the advertisers for this site. I would do that of course.

And I will only do this so that I can assure that we have total transparency and only content which is relevant and takes the forum forward in its development.

The other option instead of using Google is to have forum sponsors for the different sections of the forumm. They would then pay a certain monthly fee to have their banner shown somewhere.

Let me know what you all think about that option.

Fabian

[alicecasey]

I think that the google ads option could work if:

1) There is a note on the site explaining that the money goes to charity not profit
2) You can filter out any links you consider to be dubious or not in keeping with the site's values
3)That the ads themselves do not 'spoil' the site's currently very clear design- perhaps they could be in a row at the bottom of the page so they are not too prominent and don't squeeze the page horizontally?

I think that banner ads from sponsors are good as you have total control over revenue and content- only problem is do you have the spare capacity to get advertisers, and to maintain those ad spots on your site.