Pay what you want. Pay how you want. Becoming a DU Star Member is now much easier.

[shanen]

191. How about a two-tier donation-based charity-share system?

I confess that I was so disgusted with American politics that I wasn't planning to vote this year. Seemed to be time to give up, but I hate liars and Romney has succeeded in motivating me to vote against him. This year's neo-GOP ticket should be called Nixon/Goldwater 2012 to lead American BACKWARDS!

I have donated to a number of Democratic candidates in the past, even including Senator Obama in 2008. Now he's President Obama, but I haven't decided where to donate this year... I'm leaning towards the Credo SuperPAC because I think their targeted attacks on neo-GOP lunatics might get the biggest bang for my small number of bucks. Considering the financial model here, I'd like to throw out a suggestion for consideration. It's a two-tier system that would then direct the money to pro-democracy projects.

First, you need to figure out the average cost of a member here. That includes your estimate for covering the participation of the people who aren't donating, even though one of the main goals of this system is to get more people to donate. That cost is important because I think you have to reflect the reality, unlike neo-GOP delusional thinking.

In the first tier of the system, you are selling subscriptions or star memberships or both or other variations. The base price should be set to your estimated costs. Maybe you need a few wrinkles like subsidies for poor people or students or annual adjustments, but the basic idea is to cover the costs.

People who donate above the base price would have the rest of the money go into the second tier of the system, what I call a charity brokerage. Remember that there is no financial risk to Democratic Underground because you are already holding the money, but you will help the members match their money to pro-democracy projects, and once enough members agreed to support a project, then you would start the ball rolling.

I hope a concrete example will make it more clear. Let's say you estimate your Democratic Underground operating cost at $10/year for the paying members. If I pay $50, then I am a member for up to 5 years, but I would start with a one-year membership and $40 in my charity share account. In one part of the website, you would offer a variety of projects that I could participate in. If I liked a particular project, then I would buy a charity share in that project, reducing my balance. If enough members buy shares, then the project would have enough money for its budget, and you would start the ball rolling, but your main goal would be in helping other people prepare their project proposals. (I also think you should help evaluate the success of the projects.)

The projects could be anything, though in this election season the most obvious candidates would be anti-Romney ads and the air time to show them. I can't afford to run an ad, but with 1,000 other Democrats I could do it. I very much want to see an add with a video pastiche of Romney saying "Vote for me so that government of the corporations, by the lawyers, for the richest 0.1% of Americans, shall rule the earth."

(Longer and more complicated version of this idea under "reverse auction charity shares" on the Web.)