How should we financially support ourselves?
As you all probably know, MEY is an independent (non-funded) cyber organization that is run entirely by volunteers. Although we have no source of income, we currently host and helped design over 40 websites for independent activists and are in the process of extending our services to actual NGOs in need within countries like Iran, Afghanistan, China, Iraq and more. Free of charge. We have been very active in this field and obviously we want to improve our services by having at least 1-2 paid project developers in our team who can dedicate their time and efforts to these very important causes.
I don’t intend for MEY to be like the typical NGO, that registers itself and then thrives on primary funders who start interfering with our work and requesting some “necessary changes.” I’ve seen too many financially desperate NGOs walk through that path and this will certainly not be one of them – this is our project, built and supported for over a year now with a lot of hard work and sweat put in it. It’s by our independent staff, and for everybody to write and participate in. Everyone has a chance of being part of our staff should they choose to help out with anything in particular, we have never rejected anyone’s help in any field. I love that we function so openly and productively like this and I don’t want anything in the management to change at all just because of some $$ issues.
We have a lot of projects coming up, these projects require some financial assistance and I think it’s not enough to rely solely on independent donations. While our shop is selling a decent number of shirts per month, we are not really gaining much from it because we want these shirts to be as inexpensive as possible in order for people to buy them and help us promote our messages. Any money we get goes to our shop fee, and we are left with almost no income.
I have always prided ourselves on being financially independent, and earning every cent we ever got. We love helping others get their projects running without having to worry about money or technical difficulties as we take care of everything. That’s a lot of work, and a lot of stress. We did a LOT for an organization that contributes to others free of charge and that depends on very little money to achieve big projects (2 of which are coming in the near future.)
Now it’s time for us to start thinking about how we can stay 100% independent, without relying on any other organization, while maintaining our productivity. We want to do more, we are willing and ready to do more, people need us to do more as it helps empower their own networks or skills, but we can’t do much without the required funds. Since we are purely digital for now, we need a few skilled developers to help handle our projects, and we intend for this to be their part-time jobs. The rest of us staff members are obviously willing to do all of this without any pay (in fact some of us are losing personal money over this, but if you ask me, it’s completely worth it and I think of it as “investments” anyways.)
What do you guys suggest? I’d really hate to smother our site with ads, and to bother any readers. We want our readers and participants to be as comfortable as possible here, and I fear that the ads would get in the way of this place serving as a cool and unique platform with a great atmosphere.
Would you mind if we put ads on the site? Would it bother any of our authors? Do you guys recommend any ad services in particular that can help us generate a decent income?
Can you guys suggest any alternatives on how we can keep the site and its many activities running, and to keep providing free services to those in need?
Join the Conversation
First I have to state that I find it absolutely acceptable if you would have ads on this site. I have nothing against them on personal sites, so why should I in the case of a site dedicated to human rights?
I have been using several kinds of ad services throughout the time and have read even more about it (without being in expert). At the end, I think selling text links is the most profitable way of advertising if you do not run a commercial blog.
Unfortunately, Google may lower your PageRank if you sell textlinks. If you accept that, mideastyouth.com could, according to German linklift.de, gain an income of between 100 and 400 $. There are at least a handfull of text link ad systems, which could be used at the same time.
Another way to generate an income higher than what Google’s Adsense would generate could be to sell banner ads by yourselves. But it’s a bit more work… (Mahmood of Mahmood’s Den may have some experiences to share…)
Also, you should think about displaying ads in your podcasts / video platform.
The only thing is that it goes against our ethics to post ads in human rights blogs – because I feel that people might misunderstand and assume that we are doing this solely to earn some cash as opposed to doing it out of real concern and passion. Donations always made more sense to me, because it would be coming from people with similar interests and causes, and who sincerely want to see us improve our networks. But we never get enough of those, so we can no longer rely on them.
Esra’a, I don’t see any problems with ad banners on the site. Many other political blogs often have ads running around the place so I don’t see how that will be a problem here.
We have one paid ad already. I think it would be good if we just do it one ad at a time. I don’t want to smother the place – it would be too ugly. Our theme can’t handle it.
esraa i think the best way to make money without putting ads is to provide with services a third party (for example to sell articles to newspapers or magazines) or to cooperate with researchers in social sciences and human rights…
I am not against the idea of putting ads on the website, but i am just not comfortable with the idea of seeing an ad for some sport shoes on MEY… maybe an ad of amazon, or some related stuff…
That’s exactly the problem – we tried it for a short while and all the ads were completely irrelevant. It’s really distracting, and not very worth it.
By the way, we do cooperate with a company that buys some of our articles, Newstex. We generate about $20 a month from that.
Esra’a
I find this site very inspiring, very useful in bringing the youth in Middle East together, it is really a just cause to support the site and the NGO, if there is one based on the site, and ads as you said could be misleading some times as one cannot make much money out of very cultural ads.
Some times along with an NGO or an organization, a company or a firm is created by the members of that organization, and those people will be responsible to make money as to provide for the projects of the NGO, which on its own cannot provide for itself.
Esra’a With people from all around Middle East and the ones who are with us from outside the region, the potential is already there, even starting from a very little work, suppose people can do some trading ( that is exciting) the ones who have the right to travel to other countrieis or meet in a thrid country can inform one another on what to import or export to make a bit of extra money, and a good portion could be dedicated to the cause
?
The best way is ads! Or better yet, SPONSORS! For example, In the post entry and the beginning of a podcast you could add: “This Podcast is Sponsored by ‘Sponsor’”!
Esraa, you could embed videos in posts. You earn some money when people view the stories. Check it out here.
thenewsroom.com
I would mind seeing ads on MEY. Instead of adsense, you could just use banners to advertise for related stuff… ads for books are fine too.
I meant NOT mind.
Josef
Sponsors sounds good. But the main problem is the same as the ads, suppose : colgate! all for Middle East Teeth ! Shine Shine so bright oh Middle East ! your mouth should be wide open when you smile mused by the concept of peace! NOw that Colgate is on the agenda!
SELL PORN… ARAB PORN… YOU’LL BE SWIMMING IN AMERICAN DOLLARS!!!
GOOD IDEA I’M TAKING PICS NOW
Esra’a I wouldn’t mind ads either.. and if you dont want it cluttered what if you sign up with a few organizations to advertise for and do one of those things (very fluent in tech, as you see) where the ads switch everytime you upload the site between different sponsers.
NO ADS!!! EWWWWWW… ads make website look uuugly…. unless u design the website with ads in mind and do stuff… this layout can’t handle ads now… when a new layout come out with betta suited for ads… put ads….
@ all:
What’s “ads”? Most probably you mean Google’s Adsense. That does not bring very much income – I don’t know how much visitors this site has, but I’m totally sure selling text link ads would earn MEY much more money – and they do not take much place! They are not ugly, nor do they enervate the viewers. That’s why I recommend them: More money, less annoyance to the visitors.
Simon
Now how much all in all the site needs for running and its projects moving on? How much what you say will approximately make money in a month?
The thing is having a free access to things that might bring about some understanding in promoting peace is more advisable, if possible.
The Irony is, countries in the world invest too much into the warcraft industry, into A-bombs , bombs, waepons of mass destruction, would they dedicate just a bit… of that to promote peace? Isn’t this a “shoot yourself in your own leg” attitude? Because a war will make a country that initiates that war suffer the most, all the suffering along with the guilt would make life all the more miserable .
Any way i need some money, can i borrow some money to make a donation to the site? ( just kidding)
Because all my treasury is invested in enrichment of uranium. I am not rich but I enrich!
@ elinor:
Approx. 100-400 $ given the estimation by linklift.de, which is just one out of a couple of systems which can be used simultaneously. Realistically I would think of 100-150 $ via linklift, something in that area for two or three other systems as well, makes about 500 $. That’s more than adsense would bring in.
how much money do we need monthly ?
For hosting/servers, etc, not more than $200 a month, but if we want to expand our services and improve our website by adding new features, we’ll need maybe $400-500 a month.
The new server we bought is a dedicated virtual one, it’s for our new projects that are coming up (2 video-sharing sites, and a social networking site) costing us a big fortune. It’s hard to maintain such things if our income is at 0.
Very well ty Simon
Esra’a how would one inside Iran make donations, is it possible through Iranian banks ? You know foreign banks are not open in Iran and the ones open just serve the merchats for opening LCs.
Elinor, I’m actually embarrassed to accept anything from our members, but obviously such a commitment makes me and the rest of our staff really happy.
You can make contributions via services such as PayPal, through credit cards. I think it’s also possible through Iranian banks, but I am not sure of the details. PayPal I think is the easiest.
Esra’a, I guess members are the ones who feel the most for the forum
It is like paving our own pavement in our own alley 
neighbors contribute, don’t they 
Paypal needs non_Iranian credit cards, while we have Iranian cards. I really don’t know why Iran gets too intimidated by the thought of having an International bank come in between. You have to walk in the streets to find out how empty of international banks they are. The best way is find some one who is going to Bahrain and give him/her the contribution, I mean that is the way it works from Iran, but in case one could make it through paypal, what would be the account for Mideast youth ? Is there a link for that?