Forum Moderators: phranque
I help run a very-important/ popular, non-profit site. (I don't mean to boast; it truly is). We would really benefit from a second server to perform data analysis and research, but we can't afford to pay for it. Ideally the server would:
* Be permanently connected to the Internet.
* Have a couple of gigabytes of disk space available.
* Allow jobs to run for long periods of time (i.e. days or weeks).
* Provide a reasonably large amount of data to be transferred. Although this is not vital.
From the donor's perspective, the "catch", I imagine, will be that we can't allow any adverts (either graphical or textual) for them to appear on the main site. A credits page of some sort should be OK, however.
Unfortunately, marketing / promotion is not my field at all. :) I grok technical issues, but this stuff is beyond me. :) So, my two main questions are:
1) Are these desires practical? i.e. is it likely that companies will provide these sort of services for free?
2) If so, how would I go about approaching prospective companies? Who would I target? How would I phrase the request?
Thank you in advance. :)
If its truly non commercial and non-profit with NO weird or hidden agendas, then I may be willing to help, and hey I wont even want a link (not that you would want to link to me anyway)
Shak
Then pitch ads on these other sites to possible donators of hardware.
As a commercial site (er, with a spare server, or cash to spare), several, reasonably long term adverts on decent sites may be enough for them to donate what you need.
Well, naturally use the "We're a charity and we can't afford it - and it's such a good cause...." angle too! :)
There may also be local government grants or subsidies you could use.
Also, perhaps a comprimise could be to share data with the company, or even share the resources of someone elses server?
Not ideal, but free! ;)
Scott
<added> I like a challenge and getting stuff for free - sticky me the URL! </added>
>Try targetting companies that would benefit from the data that you are going to process - it may give them an added incentive to dontate the hardware.
>Possibly try to get your funding increased?
>Could any part of the data you are process be sold - try to pitch the server as an investment and offer a profit share back to the donator.
>Ask Shak! ;)
Good luck
Scott
The site fluctuates between PR5 and 6 (a 5 this month). Roughly 11k page hits a day; 63k visits (40k unique) a month (based on last months data from awstats, trends continuing to rise).
I have a couple of ideas about who to ask (non-profits), but wondering about how to go about it. Should I try to make some fancy looking report and provide a few different options with what I might be able to do with certain funding levels?
Its pretty hard to even speculate as noone knows your industry, but Im sure with the traffic you have that someone would be interested in financing a business arrangement.
Put together a business proposal = background about the site, traffic stats and trends, user base demographics if any, proposed business deal, costs involved, projected income, etc, etc. Then find an investor - pitch the other organisations! :)
You could also post a message in the commercial forum here asking for anyone interested in investing in businesses to sticky you for more info.
Back on topic, Sycophant, have you been able to come up with a solution for this yet?
Scott
You should make your needs known to the community you serve.
Your most likely source of donations will be from people who believe in what you are doing.
