Today I talked with Gregory Brown in the #mendicant-alumni IRC channel, to see how the charity-driven model that we started for W3Clove was going and think about the next steps in search of financial sustainability.

The Pledgie campaign has raised $240 in one week, and that's great as it allows me to cover the expenses I had in the previous months, and is enough for 2 or 3 months more of hosting.

But, donations are hard to maintain. You've got to be reminding everyone of the need for donations, and this is tiring for everybody. It's a good start, but if you want sustainability, you need a supporter network.

So, the next step is building this supporter network. A supporter will be a user that loves the service provided and is conscious that by making use of it, is making the server spend money. So, to keep the service alive, decides to support it with a monthly subscription.

What does the supporter get in return of this monthly fee, apart from feeling well about supporting a great service? Check out this gist for the ideas we came up with.