I cant comment if it could have been different but we can start now. On Bewelcome, there is section where you see a bar of how much money has been donated. We can do something along the lines
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It seems to me that you’re damned if you do and go broke if you don’t. It’s a pity there are people who fiddle the till when money comes in and others expect to their name in lights if they donate a bit of money. I’d say just allow people to donate if they want to and have a treasurer that keeps a tally of the money and where it’s spent. You’re not going to be running couchers.org on fresh air, so certainly allowing donations is a good idea.
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For context, Couchsurfing is posting a suggestion to “Send your spontaneous contribution” on your To-Do List now. That is, asking mostly people that they spontaneously threatened to pay or be locked out before, to return the favour now 
I’d say the results would certainly have been different, had they asked that from the beginning and in a sensible way and wording. But then, what beginning? Had they done that last May, they’d also have done other decisions before that. And before that. And we probably all wouldn’t be here, because it would just be a sensibly run company, that doesn’t continuously offend and dumbfound it’s users.
True, but we also won’t be running it on fresh money 
To me the most important contribution is people sharing their skills. As long as running costs are not high (as right now) I think it’s good not to focus on monetary donations, but rather how we can be attractive and make it easy for as many people as possible to contribute their time and skills. That are donations as well.
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I get what you’re saying, but I can say quite clearly that when I saw the initial financial struggles with the site, I wondered what had happened to require this. After careful reflection of nearly 15 years of activity, I realised that a shift in infrastructure, culture of users, corporate culture, and ethos of the community that really made me uncomfortable. Instead of individuals who stayed committed to a project and were transparent, I saw business investors and businessmen asking for support and it all looked a bit shady; and as a result I became much less likely to support.
I don’t doubt that leadership was doing what it thought best for the survival of the company, I just didn’t find anything to be particularly credible. Now seeing how people are being managed, just sort of tipped the scales.
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Personally i think it is important to start with “Donations” right away! And yes it is a good idea
WE should have a fund with savings for hard times or when changes need to be done. I am more then willing to spend money.
There is really no reason in my opinion not to start collecting money as fast as possible. And this page looks like it has a lot of positive vibes and a very good chance to BE what once CS was for many of us!
I think also it could be possible to have a member fee for people who like to use couchers outside of their home country (verification of address by card as from CS (something similar))
I mean, no fee or anything (except donations) for people just hosting. But if you like to send request to stay with people outside of your country i think you should be abe to pay lets say 5USD / year for the good of the community!
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We should STOP mentioning Couchsrufing every time! Couchers.org ts a new platform and people who were old members on CS will get the point that this si a new alternative and other will get this knowledge too!
That couchers.org is a NON-Profit org is good but…
- i am sure in a few years this Org will face the same problems of founding as CS did in the past. People will be ask frequently to donate money to support servers etc.
- as i mentioned in a other post already - may it would be clever to think about if people who are using this page for traveling abroad (home address related) may pay a small yearly fee to send request to stay with people - In my opinion, somebody who can travel (rich or poor country) has the means to pay a small contribution to the community.
Its just a personal opinion and idea on how this Org is able to maintain the upcoming needs
admins here have said that server costs are way less than what CS experienced in it’s run, and that keeping this site alive will be not a hard thing to achieve even with a much larger userbase, that said, a much larger user base - more donations
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The future will bring light in the dark.
Having certain ideas ready and announced once in the beginning may help to avoid later problems 
However the money collected could be used for social projects - if not needed until the date where the forecast is made for the next years…
I don’t see anything wrong with asking users for donations. But fees change entirely the dynamics. When you make a donation, you are supporting and or helping out something you believe in. When you pay a fee, you are purchasing a service, and you have expectations. It’s not the same.
I think a more stable flow of donations could (and should) be incentivized, like they do on places as Wikipedia, or all those “buy me a coffee” and similar things. I agree that if you have the money for a plane ticket and a trip and are not paying a hotel you can spare 5 bucks, maybe when you get hosted you can get a polite suggestion to make a donation to keep the project and the good experiences happening? Like a “help maintain the project alive” button or something like that. Some people will do it, some people won’t, some people will give every time, some people will sometimes give, but the easier you make it, and the more you remind people that someone is working to make those good experiences happen, the more inclined people will be to give. And giving is a good thing =)
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Yes, I think that’s practically the roadmap: We will have an option to donate. But there will neither be a fee nor a freemium model, exactly for the reasons @Aleja posted.
I actually think asking for monetary donations won’t be that much of a challenge for the foreseeable future. We probably will need to spend much more creative thought around aspects like governance, community building, volunteer engagement. Because the project basically depends on members’ and volunteers’ dedication, time and skills. As these won’t be compensated with money, it has to be rewarding and enriching as such.
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Relying on volunteers is nice, and it’s always going to be part of the project, BUT: I don’t think 100% volunteer work is going to work long term. People get busy, code needs updates and fixes (or whatever you call it, not an expert, but I understand it’s not something you just finish, and it’s done forever), some support and safety issues cannot wait too much… And people get busy, get old, change jobs, travel, have kids… If the project takes off and reaches critical mass, it’s going to need some kind of full time team, as small as possible, but I’ve seen other projects go south because at some point volunteers just can’t keep up, and then they take years to update or roll new features, and that causes people to move to other platform. Incentivizing donations could help with this issue.
IDK, I have so much respect for the volunteers of this project because they are doing such an amazing job. But: is it realistic to expect them to keep doing all that forever? They have bills to pay too.
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Well, I’m super new here, but I want to share a couple of thoughts.
I totally think people should be able to donate in some way. And I am very sure a lot of people would.
I don’t think asking people to donate at the time they get hosted is a good idea to go about it though. I’d feel obliged, personally, and not happy about it since the platform is said to be absolutely free. I would be even more upset if I were hosting people before that. I mean, I host people for totally free, just for the sake of the beautiful idea, but when I want to surf, the website asks me to pay? I understand it’s not about making it mandatory, but I’d still feel uncomfortable.
Actually, I think just a button/banner, say, in Dashboard, could be good enough. It might let you choose how much you want to pay and if it’s a one-time payment or recurring.
I also remembered a great idea of subscription from Habitica. It’s a gamified productivity app, very much an RPG where you need to build your character and fight with monsters, but instead of in-game you accomplish your real-life tasks to get different items and become more powerful. You can play for free, but you can also subscribe and get some pretty-looking items you won’t get otherwise, but that are purely decorative and don’t affect the gameplay at all.
So what I’m trying to say - maybe for those donations/subscriptions people can get some decorative stuff that doesn’t provide any new functions but is just fun. Say, backgrounds for your profile. Or funny hats for your avatar. Or sticker packs. Or anything else of that kind. Not as the main reason to pay money, but as a thank you for donating. This will also unobtrusively indicate that you are a contributor.
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Like this site? Want it to be even better? Please donate! - Let the users decide what they want to do.
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In the future, could be a pop-up like saying statistics…
Hey John Doe, you have surfer in X cities and host X surfers. It would be a great experience…
It would be nice is you could donate something so the platform can be alive forever. The team will appreciate.
And show a bar of the quantity of money is needed to be collected and the goal, to cover one year in advance. The money should be collected in advanced for next year and not the one in course.
It is an idea. Cheers!
Asking for donations is fine. Just don’t make it required and don’t put features behind a paywall, like CS did. Before CS gave everyone the boot, a few years prioi, CS put unlimited messages behind a paywall and wanted people to pay $15 to send more than 10 new messages. Please don’t do shit like that.
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I didnt know about that of CS, lol, crazy them.
I think about the popup message, that says: “you have host 5 persons, surf in 7 cities, participated in 4 events and hangout with 8 couchers… it has been a great experience. Would you like to donate at least 1 dollar? we need this year to make the goal of X amount.”
If all users of coucher will donate 1 dolar per year, now it will be around 3000 USD the users we have now. That money would help fixed developers…
Vacants in the future could rotate to give oportunity to other people to work in future with couchers.org Best regards!
Just out of curiosity: Have there been any donations so far? A simple yes/no would suffice as a reply.
I donated!
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I heard there have been a number of large and small donations, though I’m not privy to who from!
I believe there will be financial reports etc. regularly.
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I put some stats up on the donations thread: I think that’s the more on-topic place!
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