AGHSReunions:Site support
From AGHSReunions
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AGHSReunions is free to use without paying a penny. Really. You shouldn't even feel guilty about paying nothing. If you really believe in this site... If you find this site to be helpful... If you enjoy reconnecting, sharing, and interacting with your classmates and others in this environment... Most importantly, if you have extra money that you would like to give away... all donations will be cheerfully accepted! Funding and future plansWill AGHSReunions always remain free? The Magic 8-Ball® replies, "The future is uncertain." Obviously, it would be great if that actually happens, and it is the goal. Right now, our costs are low. The web hosting is being donated by Will Murray's employer, the Acorn IT Group, and plans to continue doing so as long as this site doesn't negatively impact their business use of their server. To ensure that doesn't happen, there are some fairly restrictive limitations on disk space and bandwidth usage in place. If the AGHSReunions portal becomes really popular, it will have to start paying for its own hosting. There are other expenses come up when running a site like this, even with the donated hosting. For the moment, Will is paying these expenses out of his own pocket. |
Contributions
Please ACCEPT our self-signed SSL certificate if you are prompted. Self-signing does not reduce the security of your order; it just causes a scary warning message to appear. Regular SSL certificates avoid such warning messages, but are expensive. If we get enough donations, then we will be able to afford one.
| Cost* per year | Description | Pay for 1 year | Pay for 2 years | Pay for 5 years | Pay for 10 years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $7.00/yr | Cover the cost of domain registration for one year or provide e-mail addresses for 10 class representatives. | $7.00 |
$14.00 |
$35.00 |
$70.00 |
| $30.00/yr | SSL Certificate verifies domain control and secures transactions with the site. Provides 256-bit security. | $30.00 |
$60.00 |
$150.00 |
$300.00 |
| $498.00/yr | Professional Website hosting using our own account, rather than relying on third parties lettings us share some space on their site. Storage and bandwidth limits would be greatly expanded, allowing more photos, more videos, and more reunion goodness. | $498.00 |
$996.00 |
$2,490.00** |
$4,980.00** |
| n/a | Pick another amount to give. | $1,500.00 |
$2,000.00** |
$7,500.00** |
$10,000.00** |
- Note 1: *Our payment provider, PayPal, charges us around 3% in processing fees, which are included in the costs shown above (so we don't lose money on the transaction).
- Note 2: **PayPal limits unregistered and newly registered members from sending more than $2,000 until they establish a satisfactory payment history. If you fall under this limitation, the $2,000.00 option is the largest single gift you can give.
- Note 3: ALL TRANSACTIONS ARE FINAL. NO REFUNDS WILL BE GIVEN. If you might regret the gift later, then don't give it. Remember, this site is free. You can contribute in other ways, like adding new content and interacting with your classmates. In the long run, that will make for a much more interesting and entertaining site than a cash gift will. The cash just helps keep the infrastructure running.
- Note 4: While we list particular purposes and costs above, they are examples of the services on which we might spend your cash donation. We will try to honor the intention of the donation, but we will spend the money for the betterment of the site in the manner and priority that we think is in the best interest of the site as a whole. Some options, like an SSL certificate, are useless without having a place to host the website. Also, there are limits to how many years we can prepay certain expenses, and any excess amounts will be used to pay other expenses. In summary, the donation amounts listed above are examples of how we might use the money to pay some very real expenses, but they are not guaranteed to be used for those specific purposes. Don't worry though, donations will be used only to benefit the site—not to line anyone's pockets.
Gifts aren't deductible
Unfortunately, these "donations" are not tax-deductible because this site is not a State chartered, Federally recognized non-profit organization. Frankly, that's a lot of work, and there's no guarantee that this site will ever grow to the point that it makes sense to do that. Someday, maybe. For now, you are just giving money to a friend to help him pay to keep a website running that you like. It's as simple as that.
What do I get for giving?
You mean besides the warm fuzzy feelings? ;-)
So far, there haven't been any gifts, but after we get our first one, a special thank you area will be setup, and we'll add the names of the people who give gifts to that list for everyone to see what great people they are. Be sure to fill in a name (it can be your name, your pet's name, your business' name, or you can make a gift in memoriam) on the payment screen. You can also include a website for us to link to, and if it's not too risqué or controversial, we'll link the name to the site.
