obligatory preface that we’re 100%-user funded and everything you donate to us specifically goes to the website, or any outside labor we pay to do something for us.
this update is only because after a long round of troubleshooting with volunteer sysadmins and sysops yesterday, we committed to significant new expenses that have helped solve any errors that people were previously getting. our hopefully-final update of where we stand is a break-even of $54 a month or $648 a year. (please once again ignore OC’s estimated yearly budget–we don’t determine it lol)
our expenses are currently:
- $48/mo toward our host, Digital Ocean. (reversible. if we need to commit to further than this it is also likely we will seek another host since DO is on the expensive side)
- $2/mo for weekly backups
- $4/mo for daily snapshots of the website, which would allow us to restore the website in between the weekly backups if need be.
for a total of at least $54/mo in expenses. this may vary from month to month though, so we’re baking in a bit of uncertainty with our estimation.
we currently have, for the month of June:
- $85/mo in recurring donations (at least for June)
- $620 this month in one-time donations
for a total of $705 this month. our total balance now stands at 726.51.
that balance means we now have about a year of reserves currently, if we received no other donations and have no unexpected expenses. i’m sure we’ll have churn in our monthly donations and such though, so please don’t hesitate to donate on our OpenCollective page if you’d like to keep the site going.
thanks folks!
I’m a Linux sysadmin by profession, and I use DO extensively for work. Not sure I have anything to contribute, but feel free to reach out if there’s ever a need
I have definitely noticed a difference in performance between yesterday and today, so I’m happy the mods are scaling and that they have the funds to do so.
You guys are awesome, the servers has been much better today, with basically no crashes or issues(for me anyway).
I suggest taking a look at Hetzner for hosting, I have found them very reliable and affordable. And perhaps reach out to admins of some of the larger Mastodon instances for hosting advice.
Seconding this. Hachyderm documented their performance scaling and financing journey quite extensively, and I’m sure many of their decisions could be applicable to Beehaw as well.
Is it possible to replace the “Support Lemmy” link in the navigation? Of course the new page should tell you how to support the project, but it might help to also tell users how to donate to the server?
Very few problems today, though. Great job!
I agree, but where is there a “Support Lemmy” link?
It’s the really small heart in the top navigation bar, on mobile you have to open the “hamburger menu.” Easy to miss and might be better as text too?
I might have gone years without noticing what that heart logo actually linked to. Thanks for pointing that out. Again, I very much agree with you, but now even more.
Thanks for the info… new around here, how long has Beehaw existed?
its planning began almost two years ago but as the current site, it’s existed for approximately a year and a half or so
Great! If there’s any way to help via code or something else please let us know, I’m sure a lot of the people here would love to help out.
I wonder if fargate etc. vs. DO would be cheaper/better. If it isn’t broken and traffic is steady no need to change providers, but would be curious to see.
Great! If there’s any way to help via code or something else please let us know, I’m sure a lot of the people here would love to help out.
The Lemmy project is always happy to see new contributors :)
There are some nice issues lying around needing more attention hehe
If you’re interested in helping out with development, you should also join the Lemmy Development Matrix room!
Thanks for the update, and thanks to the amazing community stepping up and providing funding.
Will you ever create a legal entity for beehaw? Having a legal entity with a proper organization would allow you to have a dedicated bank account with proper ownership that is less susceptible to corruption
I also think you could try to get a corprate sponsor. You could create a rentable image on the front page that companies and individuals could rent out for a month.
I personally have no interest in making this corporate in any capacity and do not want to invite the voice of capital. I suspect the other admins feel similarly but I won’t speak on their behalf.
Although I oppose corporate sponsorship, I would encourage you to strongly consider incorporating (probably as a nonprofit incorporation, options vary by state) as you scale upwards. This offers legal protection not only to the operators of the service but also to the users, since it allows for appropriate controls on governance and finances. Unincorporated community services that take donations are, unfortunately, notorious for corruption and self-dealing since there are few legal and organizational measures in place to prevent it.
Beehaw would most likely not qualify for federal tax exemption (but you could get an attorney’s opinion). In a way that’s a good thing, as the typical cost of getting an IRS letter of status runs over $1k while the typical cost of incorporating a nonprofit in most states is around $100. This is all US-centric of course, in other countries I have no idea!
Sorry to be clear I meant taking on capital in exchange for a voice, how pretty much all vc and funding works. We should, eventually, become a formal nonprofit because then all the wonderful donations can also be a tax write-off for our users 😊
Are they not? The donation page says “This Collective’s Fiscal Host is a registered 501©(3) non-profit organization. Your contribution will be tax-deductible in the US, to the extent allowed by the law.”
I presumed this was based on the umbrella you were accepted under to be on opencollective?
Okay so digging into the website a little bit more, it sounds like they do all the paperwork to make it a 501c3. I’m not sure where it’s incorporated and haven’t seen the actual document of incorporation. I will reach out to their support to better understand the situation.
I didn’t set up the open collective and I don’t fully understand how it works. This is what I remember from browsing their docs but I wasn’t involved in it’s setup nor in any legal paperwork. I’ll talk with Chris and see what this involved.
cool
How do you plan to distribute the available balance? Will all community members get to participate and have a say in non-fundamental budget decisions?
How do you plan to distribute the available balance?
as of now we don’t pay for anything but the site, so it’s all just going to keeping the site up. the balance is our runway to keep the site up, and right now it’s sitting at around 16 months before we’d be in trouble.
Will all community members get to participate and have a say in non-fundamental budget decisions?
because of the answer to the above: no. for one thing, the only other stuff we might spend money on is paying labor out to someone for the work they do to keep the site running. this is a very simple operation, and we’re not going to overcomplicate it.
for another thing: we are not anywhere near the point where we need, really want, or can actively facilitate community input on how our budget should be spent–and i have no idea what meaningful input our community as a whole can currently give us. (and if we ever do seek community input, it’ll be when 80% of our community has been around for longer than 21 days)
I see. Thank you for the fast reply.
