That said, bringing you the coverage and content we do comes at ever increasing costs. Whether that be the couple of hundred dollars a year we spend on hosting our podcast or all the money spent of gas and parking travelling around the lower mainland to bring you action and reports from BC's Provincial Cup and college scene, or everything else inbetween.
No-one's asking us to do that, I know.
So the decision was made that myself at AFTN and Duane at 24th Minute would each run a fundraising drive.
Now, first thing to make clear is that me and Duane are doing this independently from each other. No money donated to the 24th Minute or Two Solitudes podcast campaign will be heading AFTN's way, and no funds raised by us, will be heading their way.
I'll be honest here, doing a fundraising drive doesn't sit comfortably with me. Neither does running ads on the site to help fund costs. I just don't feel that one part of CSN should be raising money on it's own.
I know Kickstarter and Indiegogo are the in things to raise cash for stuff these days, and we did think about doing that, but it's not for me. At least not right now.
When AFTN started as a fanzine in Scotland in 1989, we made the decision never to run paid ads in it and we ran it as a completely non-profit making publication. In reality, it didn't even break even with our costs, but everyone has a hobby that cost money and that was ours.
Now we have a team here in Canada. An active team, that I'd like to give a little bit of expenses to each month so that they can keep bringing you the same quality product without being too much out of pocket.
And so we come to the fundraising pitch.
I'm doing things a bit differently from Duane. We are not setting any firm targets. We'll take his plan as a base and say that ideally we'd like to raise $2400, which will work out at $200 per month.
If it's more, fantastic. If it's less, still fantastic. We appreciate all support.
That money would be split on a pro-rata basis on our team based primarily, but not solely, on their output and go towards their expenses, not to keep them in beer and pizza.
The great thing about our site is that there is no pressure for anyone to write anything. I want my team to write when they have the feel and the passion to do so. If a whole month goes by without an article, then that's fine by me. I don't want stuff just churned out for the sake of it.
We won't be setting any minimum standards of article numbers per week, but we do pledge to continue to bring you the same quality coverage that we currently do, which is pretty substantial if we're being frank.
It's it ain't broke, then why fix it? And why would you not write what you want to write after all?
Our fundraising campaign will run from today until midnight PST on June 30th. We'll still take donations after that point in time, but just won't be promoting the hell out of it. And yes, we will follow Duane's lead and likely make this pitch this time next year.
Now, something else I want to make clear.
AFTN will continue no matter how this fundraising campaign goes. There's no threat to take the site away, but we may not continue it on Canadian Soccer News past the end of this year in any event, even with the fundraising.
It WILL continue though, either elsewhere or we've been looking into an expanded standalone site like we still have back in Scotland.
AFTN is 25 years old this year in it's various forms. I 'd love to see it going for another 25 years, whether we make money out of it or not.
That's not why I started it and that's not why I'd stop it.
I fully understand other people have different viewpoints and personal circumstances, but these are mine.
So all that said, if you would like to donate, then it would be very much appreciated and certainly put to good use.
There are four ways you can donate:
1) EMT money transfer to mcmccoll @ hotmail.com (make password AFTNdonation)
2) PayPal donation to aftncanada @ hotmail.com
3) Cash donation provided in person at a Caps game, be it MLS, PDL or Residency
4) A mailed cheque (email me at aftncanada @ hotmail.com for address)
In terms of what's an appropriate donation, that's up to you. No amount is too small.
Additionally, we are also looking at raising money for the podcast, but this will be separate from this and who knows, may even involve a Kickstarter campaign. Ideally we are looking for a title sponsor and maybe a couple of other ads in the show to raise money for new equipment.
If you're interested in that, then drop me an email at: aftncanada @ hotmail.com and we can chat about terms.
Anyway, thanks for reading this far. Way, way longer than it was meant to be.
And thanks for all your support these past few years, whether that be financial or not. We truly appreciate it.
Michael