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Post #1: 23rd Oct 2023 6:41 PM 
https://www.patreon.com/Ndim

Ndim needs your help! The chunks of texts below are copied over from the other thread, so you'll get the tldr at the top here:

Visit the link above if you'd like to donate to keeping Ndim sailing along. We currently have four membership tiers, $3, $5, $10, and $20. These would be monthly recurring payments that you can start or stop at any time, resume at a later date, or ignore and spit on!

The gist behind Patreon is that each tier offers you different rewards. As we start out here, the rewards are louder and more authentic 'thank yous' from each of us and from your fellow Ndim users. We have plans for fleshing out these tiers later on and have ideas for different rewards, but for the start it's gonna be barebones - Ndim's got bills to pay NEXT WEEK!

Sincere thank you to everyone who chooses to donate. All of us have (presumably!) gotten much enjoyment out of Ndim in its many different forms over many years, and every bit you pitch in will help that enjoyment continue for us, yourself, and the community at large. Thank you!

============================================

As we stated in the 2.0 thread, Ndim isn't cheap! We've all enjoyed the privilege of not having to worry about server costs since the start of Ndim, but those days have sadly come to an end. As it stands, the server that hosts Ndim costs $100 a month. Our top priority is looking into a cheaper server, getting that number down to a worry-free level would be a huge relief and would mean smooth sailing. But we aren't quite there yet, that's gonna take a bit of time and we have to find a platform that can host our unique mess that is Ndim.

If the four of us could comfortably afford the $100 a month we would love to, but we unfortunately cannot. Many of you have been great about reaching out to us over the years (especially lately with this transition) about helping to fund Ndim. We've never been comfortable with asking for help unless we had the ability to actively develop Ndim in some way, which we thankfully do now. Which means we're now turning to the community for help!

Patreon is a site that allows users to support creators by pitching in a recurring payment. The keyword here is recurring. While kickstarter would produce greater funds upfront, we are looking for longevity here. If the funds slow down and die, then unfortunately Ndim/FE/Ndim ORGs/former boards will do the same. Not to scare everyone, but that's the reality.

We're asking for people to pitch in however much they can/are able to. Remember, this is a marathon, not a sprint. Many of us splitting the cost together over a long period of time is a lot better than a larger, one time donation. If ten people contribute $10 a month, we're covered. If 50 of us can contribute $2 a month, even better. I believe we can reach these numbers, but it's gonna take FE/ProM/ORGers alike to all come together.

IMPORTANT! All of this money is going STRAIGHT into Ndim. Nothing is going into our pockets, we have all agreed on that and are gonna be fully transparent about it. We don't need or want the money, we want to keep Ndim running.

Also important, everyone's financial situations are different. You could be a prolific ORG host or a longtime FE member who is unable or unwilling to pay, that is perfectly fine and we understand.

With that said, we will be very thankful to all who do help the community out here. The more who help, the less everyone has to contribute! If you've ever enjoyed using Ndim, whether hosting or playing ORGs through it or posting on FE or ProM or any other forum, anything you're able to donate towards it to help keep it running is greatly appreciated. We'll post a thread with a link to the Patreon soon. Bills are due NOVEMBER 1ST! Gulp
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Post #2: 23rd Oct 2023 6:42 PM 
Let me know if there are any issues! We're all new to this and it's a work in progress, but the Patreon is now live and should be good to go
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Post #3: 23rd Oct 2023 6:49 PM 
Just signed up myself. Create an account, join as a fan (not creator), choose your tier (if you wish!). Easy peasy
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Post #4: 24th Oct 2023 4:48 PM 
im317 @ 24/10/2023 0:00
317 @ 23/10/2023 23:59
this is all just a plot to get my contact info isn't it? is there an option to do this via PayPal? i dont want a recurring charge but i would donate some here and there. there is a PayPal option. ok i will deal with this tomorrow. probably join the group and do a 1 off platinum.



I think you're joking, but just to be clear the only info we can see is username + email so no worries there

Working on a Paypal option! Patreon links to either a bank account or a Paypal and obviously we're not going the bank account route, so we'll be creating an Ndim Paypal and the money from there will feed into the server costs each month. We'll post the Paypal info when we have it
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Post #5: 29th Dec 2023 2:13 PM 
im317 @ 29/12/2023 13:46
Can we get an update on the health of the site's funding and the search for new cheaper hosting please.


You sure can, we’re regrouping soon now that the holidays are ending and we’re all a bit less busy. Will post updates when we have them

Short answer: monthly funding is still juuuuust hitting what we need it to and cheaper hosting is still being explored. We had some leads. Cheaper is our top priority
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Post #6: 30th Mar 2024 12:17 PM 
Ndim Patreon Update: Q4 2023

Hello! We wanted to post these after each quarter but all got a bit busy with irl stuff over these last few months. I also think it's important to lay out just how fine a line it is between Ndim continuing or Ndim meeting a tragic demise, and to show how much each donation helps everyone out.

For a tier refresher:

Bronze: $3 a month
Silver: $5 a month
Gold: $10 a month
Platinum: $20 a month

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The chart above shows how our first three months panned out after launching the Patreon. NOTE: There were (I believe two) direct donations in those first two months, they just weren't from membership tiers.

The server costs $100 a month. We're still looking into migrating to a cheaper server which would be a huge relief and would help put my fears of Ndim's death to rest. This is currently our #1 priority, there's just quite a bit that goes into it.

What really fucks us over is Patreon's Payment fee and Platform fee, about $10 each for a total of $20 a month. That means our REAL target line is the red line on the right, $120 a month. Below is a breakdown of Q4 2023's earnings and fees:

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You can see that we're clearing the $100 by a bit in Gross revenue, but the Your Earnings column is all that matters. After fees, we're just baaarely scraping by (the numbers in this screenshot take into account the direct donations on top of the membership donations)

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Post #7: 30th Mar 2024 12:56 PM 
Ndim Patreon Update: Q1 2024

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And here's Q1 of this year, right up to where we're currently at. As you can see, Silver, Gold, and especially Platinum (v thankful for our few Platinum folks) do a lot of the heavy lifting (though every bit from Bronze counts). In the last week, we had two Platinum cancellations which means we're unfortunately currently under the target line of $120. We'll of course never shame or blame anyone for cancelling or pulling back their memberships, very appreciative of anyone who's given anything up to this point. This just shows how much one or two changes can push things into the red, it's a pretty fine line sadly

The bottom line!

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https://www.patreon.com/Ndim

This month will be okay, we have some small spillover from previous months and I can personally cover a bit in an emergency. But neither of those safety nets are sustainable, the spillover will run out asap and I really can't be covering the difference each month, unfortunately.

If you've been considering joining the Patreon, upgrading your membership, or kicking in a direct donation via the Patreon, those would all go a long way towards keeping things away from the danger zone and past that $120 red line. Like I said before, a cheaper server is our top priority so if we can get through this period and make it to that point, it'll be much smoother sailing and we can hopefully get this to a point where we don't have to worry about it from month to month anymore.

Thanks again to everyone who has donated up to this point and to anyone who donates now or in the future! We know content and changes haven't been rolling out since those first two months, but there's a ton that goes into that as well. Our hands have been sadly tied quite a lot with what we're able to/not able to update so far, but we're actively looking into alternatives and will post updates on the content/progress side when we have more info.
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Post #8: 7th Apr 2024 9:30 AM 
Ndim Patreon Update: Q1 2024 pt 2

Great news! Thanks to you all, the recent spike allowed us to push past out goal and make things much more comfortable going forward:

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We were at $87 (after fees) at the end of March, but quickly went up to $163 (goal is $100 after fees). As you can see, Patreon are crooks and the payment and platform fees went up from $20 to $30 as we earned more. Dumb!

The spillover allows us to pay for the domain, which is expiring in 3 days. That's a yearly payment, somewhere between $30-$50 a year (we're looking into that now).

Thanks to all who've donated up to this point and to those who jumped in this past week to help out! Keep telling your pals about the Discord/Patreon/Support board, I know some Patreon subscribers we just got were people who hadn't heard of the 2.0 project yet and didn't know the Patreon existed. Word of mouth helps a lot! Ndim has many different little pockets of communities outside of our own so if word continues to spread then that's gonna help us all out.
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