Looking for subscribers.

[Kaye Boggs]

Your call for 500 subscribers to ISACA is rather expensive at $60.00 annually ($4.99/month).  I belong to my local and state artist associations for a lot less in dues and  benefit from their conferences and workshops, newsletters, showing, etc.  The $30,000 collected if you should get the 500 subscribers is only of benefit if you live in the area where the society is located. 

Does this mean we current members will no longer have access to the site if we choose not to subscribe?  Perhaps you might consider a much lower subscription price for members out of your state.

Just my thoughts.  I wish you well in your endeavor but it's too expensive for the return I would get.

[Cecil Touchon]

Yes, Kaye I see what you are saying and thanks for your comments. As you mention, $30,000.00 (less transaction fees) is the current budget that we are trying to cover. Is it worth it to you personally? I suppose not. Will you loose access to this site if you do not contribute? This Ning site has been running out of my pocket for almost 10 years at about 250.00 a year or about 2,500.+ so far (not counting management time of myself and others like the lovely Janice McDonald who volunteers to keep things operating. No one has ever been kicked off in the past for not contributing nor has any serious effort been made to raise money. But your future access will, in part, be provided for by the generosity of those who do subscribe. All of whom I thank for your support! We have raise a whopping $125.00 so far in the last 45 days.

The Museum and this ISACA Society that goes with it (intended for the contributors of works to the collection) is an art project that is a lot like the old Stone Soup story. If you don't know the story you should look it up. Must you contribute to benefit from being a part of the ISACA? Of course not. But, in the best interest of those who have contributed works to the Collage Museum Archives, it is now time to raise enough money to build and fund a solid program for it that includes caring for it, documenting it, promoting and exhibiting works from it and keeping it growing through future exhibition and publication projects. Unfortunately this much fun requires a little bit of money and endless hours of continued effort. Without a solid budget it is hard to plan out grand projects.

So if the you cannot afford or do not see the value in being a subscribing member then please, do not subscribe. I am only asking the help of willing participants but everyone is welcome to join the caravan at no cost whatsoever right up until we run out of water.

[Kaye Boggs]

Thanks for your response, Cecil, and I totally understood that someone was paying for the work associated with the site for all these years as an act of love for the art.  I also have spent many hours and dollars volunteering for non-profit associations for 50+ years and totaling the dollars involved would be a staggering amount.

If you have a cultural alliance type organization in Santa Fe you might be able to apply for a grant to subsidize operating costs or you might appeal to a local art organization to include the collagist organization in a big local fundraiser or art show where you could possibly make your goal money in one event.  That might prove to be not as labor intensive as managing a database of 500 members.

I wish you luck in your endeavors and I have always enjoyed the benefits of the site without being a subscriber, thanks to you.

[Stephen Mead]

Not meaning to be presumptuous, but a search showed this many members:1,052.  Most likely some no longer visit/post, and many, like Kaye, are not in geographic locations convenient to the membership benefits.  Cecil, you write that it takes about $250 to run the site, but maybe there could be another mass email sent out and a tip jar/donation amount of what people can afford just to keep the Ning site up, starting at least at a dollar might give an assessment as to how many are using this site and how important it is to them.  I have certainly enjoyed my time here posting and commenting, (especially since I don't do networks like Facebook), but is there much interaction truly between members or are we just posting our work to have it out there where at least someone else might validate it?

[Cecil Touchon]

Thanks for the comments, I have added a DONATE button on the front page under the subscription button. So if you would like to help out with a dollar or a thousand dollars then that is the button to use. Does that help?

[Kaye Boggs]

In fact, it does help.  

And because I don't believe in  getting something for nothing, I used the DONATE button yesterday.

Thank you for doing what you do.

Kaye 

[Stephen Mead]

Thank you for supporting the idea ( and not saying I was pushy!)  I did a good faith donation so as not to be a hypocrite!  Come on other members...Perhaps Cecil can make a collage from the receipts of our efforts...

[Cecil Touchon]

Thanks Steven! And yes all members, don't forget to subscribe! 479 to go...

[Kaye Boggs]

Does the organization not acknowledge Donations?  I made a $35. donation by Pay Pal on July 1 and hope the org. received it.

[Stephen Mead]

I am curious about the difference (at least publicly), here in response to a "fund drive" vs. the response of members from another Ning Group, the International Union of Mail Artists, facing a similar fiscal crunch:

"Dear IUOMA members, after the news that NING would increase the rates for hosting the websites to higher amounts lots of e-mails and donations came in. The donation itself are enough to pay for another year, so that is what will happen now. Till October 2017 the network will stay online for sure. In that year we will figure out a structure that will work, or decide for new ways to keep the content alive and well.

In only 3 days the members came up with the funds to keep IUOMA online. Quite an achievement and a show of strength of the current network.

Thanks for all your support. Because of the massive e-mails en communications I wasn't able to react to all in person. Sorry for that.
with best wishes

Ruud Janssen
Visit International Union of Mail-Artists at: http://iuoma-network.ning.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network "

The International Collage discussion was started by Cecil in June and it is now September (with over 200 some views)...any updates?

[Kaye Boggs]

Hello Stephen:  According to the home page, the site has 22 subscribers.  At 4.99/month that totals $109.78 per month or $1,317.36 for one year.  I guess my donation via PayPal of $35.00 instant money would only cover

7 months under that equation.  Perhaps that is why my donation was never acknowledged, except it did show it was paid by PayPal and deducted from my checking account.   I will continue to donate periodically as long as I'm still considered a member.  How about you.  Did you get recognized for your donation?

Kaye

[Stephen Mead]

Hi Kaye,

Thanks for keeping this conversation going.  It could be me but it seems as if activity has gone way down on this site since money has been asked for.  I'm pretty sure I received an email response regarding my donation but my brain is like the weather, often hazy in cloudy skies!

Be well, Stephen

[Cecil Touchon]

Thanks for your donations Kaye and Stephen. Actually I just updated, three additional subscribers have signed on. You are not listed on the subscriber page because you did not sign up as a subscriber but as a one time contributor. Maybe I should start a contributor list too. The idea of the subscriber angle is to create an ongoing and slowly growing fund that will do a lot more than merely pay for this collagist.org website. Additional funds go toward things like framing works in the collection, exhibition projects, catalog creation, etc. and so forth. It is one thing to have a massive collection but another thing to get the works in front of the public. So it seems to me that raising funds for professional presentation of ongoing and upcoming projects is good for those who have contributed art to help build the collection.