Help support Susan's Place Transgender Resources

[Ltl89]

None of the currently public areas other than the Just for Us forum will ever become subscriber only. I am going to be adding some new features to the site, and some of them will give subscribers early access. One of the neatest things I have in mind is the equivalent of a web based transgender magazine with news, features, etc. Subscribers will gain access to its content 6 months before it is made publicly available. I would like to have enough coming in through donations to be able to give a small payment to thank the creators of the content for that.

All that will come sometime after the redesign of the site which is the first and most important project. We are running a 1996 look, and we need to fix that.

If you don't have the money to subscribe or donate, consider volunteering on the site. While we won't make a job out of thin air for you, there are areas of the site that need help. check the announcements forum for more information!

As you can see from what I wrote Joey, the just for us forum is just a start. Give us some time. Consider your subscription to be a investment in the future of Susan's Place! It will eventually pay dividends.

Okay, that sounds like a good idea.  I just want it to work out for you.  This sounds like a good plan to pick up the subscribers.

On the volunteer note, if you ever need something or the site is lacking in one area, I'd be willing to do what I can for this site as it has been a tremendous aid to me.  This is probably the only way I could help you at this current point as I am broke, probably losing my home, have medical expenses to pay and am trying to get into grad school.  However, if I ever have any form of disposable income, I would be willing to make a donation because I'd love to give back to this site after all the support it has extended to me.  In the meantime, I have to apologize for the fact that I am unable to monetarily contribute as I have no means of doing so.

[Susan]

Some people were unable to access donations most notably staff members, this has been fixed!

[DriftingCrow]

Does Susan's Place have tax-exempt or non-profit status with the IRS?

[Susan]

https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,145185.0.html

I logged in today, and found the ole Just for Us was just gone.

No explanation in announcements that I could find without a lot of digging.

I like the reorganization, but I rarely dislike it when a forum is trying to improve.

But Susan, you need to get out a thread titled more in your face obvious, as  lot of us are likely wondering 'where did my section go?' and the only reason I am currently aware of the link, and the specific request for Just For Us is becoming subscriber only and requiring a donation, is I am inherently a scrounge at heart.

I by the way, am likely going to be offer up the support, so you are on your way to getting +1, my pay pal is currently in need of some funds, or I would have already started.

I have in the past, growled, and complained and bitched and chewed about a lot of things, but, I can also be called the sort of person willing to put her money where her mouth is

The site is indeed worth some help from me, regardless of what I have said while pissed off in the past.

But you probably should have been a little louder about the changes in a more visible link.

Just saying it here so those that might not be quite the digger that I am can find their way to the link.

I first posted about all this in July 2012, I waited a year before implementing the subscription system.

You may have noticed how slow the site has been in recent months. That is because the site had grown to the point where it was maxing out its internet connection. With much needed financial help from Cindy James we have made some changes which will improve the web sites performance massively. We are now running on a 10mbps fiber optic connection, which is 6.66x faster than our previous connection. We are also working on getting that bumped up to 30mpbs.  Over the next few weeks Susan's will be migrated onto a pair of servers purchased with Cindy's help which will be able to handle as much traffic as we can throw at it.

Why didn't I do it sooner? Well, I simply could not have done this on my own. Hosting costs will be rising from $400 per month to nearly $700, and my finances have been at the maxed out point for several years as I have single-handedly financed the operations of Susan's Place since 1996 with out any outside support.  I have done this using income from my job, help from my boss, and of course maxing out some really good credit cards. In that time I figure that I have spent roughly $162,000 myself over the last 16 years and that is not counting the roughly $50,000 in hosting expenses my current boss has contributed to the operation of the site, and we eventually need to get some of that back.  The figure includes my time, hardware, software, server maintenance costs, and bandwidth. That price will continue to go up some as we make these much needed changes.

In the last year this site has served 1,826,279 Visits from 993,940 Visitors accounting for 11,629,347 page views. Since I started keeping stats using Google analytics in November 2006, we had 6,813,864 visits from 3,689,398 visitors accounting for 45,176,104 page views.  Between 1996 until now I have had several hundred people spontaneously contact me to tell me how this web site has saved their lives, so we are doing good works; and I want to continue to do so.

I have thought long and hard how to spread the costs of providing lifesaving peer support for the Transgender Community, here is what I have come up with.

First off everything that is freely available to you today on this web site, will remain free with one exception.

We are going to allow people who wish to help with the monthly costs to do so by establishing a monthly subscription option for $4.95 per month for those who want to help support the site. I much prefer this option over adding advertising. I am working on a way to make it so the subscription can be handled as a reoccurring donation to a non-transgender foundation, so if you need to explain it to a spouse or whatever about the charge.  I am hoping for 2,000 to subscribe.  This will bring in $9,990 per month. After covering operating costs, I want to pay for a new professional design for the site from the ground up, and hopefully be able to pay some of the world renown gender professionals to come here to provide some guidance and services to members and supporters.  Anything over 2,000 subscribers would be simply amazing. After that we will continue to invest a major portion of the profits back into providing more and more services for members and supporters. I don't expect this to happen in a year, if it does that would be awesome but I am patient. In the mean time I will keep paying the costs until the site is able to support its self.

After that I will receive a paycheck to help recoup some of my expenditures.  I also need to reimburse my boss for his costs in supporting the site over the years as well.   

Staff may also eventually receive a small stipend, starting with administrators and as we are able to the moderators and other staff. Don't plan on that any time soon however.

The private Just for us forums are going to become subscriber only. We may also offer username@members.susans.org email addresses to subscribers. If enough revenue is generated we will be looking at adding a slew of other members only benefits such as moderated chats with experts and personalities of interest to the transgender community, informative articles, tips, tutorials etc.

Another advantage of this will be that I will be able to dedicated more time to Susan's Place.

I hope that many of you will choose to help do your part. Thanks for you time, support, and attention.  Your feedback is welcome.

No the site does not have tax exempt status and so neither donations or subscriptions are tax exempt. That may eventually happen at some point in the future but that's somewhere down the road.

[DriftingCrow]

No the site does not have tax exempt status and so neither donations or subscriptions are tax exempt. That may eventually happen at some point in the future but that's somewhere down the road.

Is it set up as a corporation or a single-member LLC or other form of partnership if you have others involved? Just curious now.  The tax-exempt applications aren't too difficult to do, but they're time consuming and can take up to a year before the IRS actually looks at the applications.

I had no idea it cost so much to run the website, thanks for making us aware of all you've sacrificed Susan.

[Lesley_Roberta]

Talk is cheap, forums though cost money.

Donated 5 bucks, I won't miss it, but I think the forum would be.

I understand that Just for Us needs a subscription, and I can live with that. I don't require the special section to be 'worth' 10 bucks to be sufficient reason to subscribe, I recognize there has to be something special, but the whole point is Susan isn't swimming in cash.

I'd likely be ok with a 10 dollar subscription, but, unfortunately for Susan, I spent July beating the crap out of my spending money Too many models, and too much jewellery from Avon and then I went and decided to buy some clothing before talking with a local cis female friend that likely could have saved me a lot of cash first. I likely will be spending most of the next few months clearing my credit card (a person needs to clean up their own backyard before they can go fiddling with someone else's eh ).

I likely will be able to do the subscribe thing soon enough, I manage the family finances and that means I likely can find a lousy 10 bucks.
But I need to wait till Aug 01 before I can get money before I can fill up my paypal before I can go spending it on anything, good causes included.

But I donated to at least put my foot in and help out. 5 bucks a few 1000 times wouldn't hurt eh.

[Susan]

Is it set up as a corporation or a single-member LLC or other form of partnership if you have others involved? Just curious now.  The tax-exempt applications aren't too difficult to do, but they're time consuming and can take up to a year before the IRS actually looks at the applications.

I am sole owner of Susan's Place.

This isn't your average web site.  We have 6 administrators, 32 staff members, and 6,739 users who have all been active in the last year. (I did a prune today). Well over 5 million unique visitors have visited the site. We have over 1,000,000 posts on the forums. Most websites won't do 1,000,000 views in their entire lifetime. We have been in continuous operations since late 1995.

Until I am able to recoup some of the significant investment I have put in the site I won't consider going non-profit.  I want to get my transition going again! It's been stalled for far too long! Even before then you will see positive changes happening to the site. First and foremost will be a total redesign from top to bottom!

[Shantel]

Good plan Susan. I'm on a fixed disability income and not exactly rolling in dough, but plan to be a monthly subscriber in spite of it. I've had nothing but joy being a participant here at Susan's over the years, payback time is long overdue. Thanks for all you have accomplished for the sake of others! ~Shan~

[Susan]

I upgraded the paypal account to premium, which means you can pay with any credit card without needing to be a paypal member, you can also chose to set your subscription or donation as a  reoccurring transaction.

How to subscribe or donate
To make a donation you must be logged in on a forum account. Once logged in visit our donations page

To Subscribe visit https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php?action=profile;area=subscriptions

How to cancel a subscription
To stop a subscription you go to your profile page on this site and visit actions at the top of your profile, and click on paid subscriptions. You can unsubscribe there. When your subscription runs out it will not be renewed.

[Sarah Louise]

Thank you, that helps.

It works!

[Antonia J]

Thanks Susan.  If I make a 120 donation, to avoid recurring charges, could I still have access to just for us?

[Susan]

Thanks Susan.  If I make a 120 donation, to avoid recurring charges, could I still have access to just for us?

I have added yearly subscription options though I prefer monthly as that is easier to budget for both you and me.  When you subscribe you decide if a subscription is reoccurring or a one time thing.

[Sarah Louise]

I didn't see the option (Monthly or One Time) when I paid with a credit card.

Although I did click on Donation, maybe that is why.

[Susan]

It's not a one time subscription, but people can chose to automatically renew, or have to manually renew.

For subscriptions we have options to pay for it one month at a time or you can chose to pay a year at a time.

[Lo]

I know how hard forums are to maintain and how expensive they can get.

Consider me a subscriber :]

[Susan]

Thank you Lo! Added you to my buddies!

[bethany]

Susan I plan on donating as soon as my check comes in at the begining of the month. If I can afford to subscribe I will.

[Sandy]

Hell!  I can't let everyone else have all the fun!

I'm in for as long as I'm able.

-Sandy

[Susan]

Hell!  I can't let everyone else have all the fun!

I'm in for as long as I'm able.

Thank you Sandy!

[justpat]

  Hi Susan,
  When doing a yearly subscription can I pay with a regular credit card ? I don't use Paypal.