[quote user="tmstein"]
Donors have to work (some very hard) for their $10, $50, $100 or whatever sum they give and I think its more than fair to give credit to their contributions in an appropriate way!
[/quote]

I would like to donate... but I am struggling to make ends meet as it is... not sure how long my job will last and the mounting bills... at present I am just keeping my head above the rising water line... (and I live in the same City as David... hope he lives up on the hill ;) )

With the recession starting to bit the smaller companies and one man bands (as in David) will feel the pinch first.

I do believe you do and are suppose to get an email saying thank-you. I did last time I donated (which admittily was a while back) so it could easily be a technical fault and array of any number of reasons why you haven't recieved one yet. Right down to although you have have sent, David hasn't recieved... and if it is pay pal that would not supprise me one bit

Not long before David’s open letter, I made a 100$ donation to pmail.

The only thing I got in return is the receipt from Paypal.

+1

And I would add a special mailing list for donators, to grant them some symbolic privileges, as a matter of politeness.

This has already been discussed, and not implemented.

+1 more

Definitely a special mailing list.

I sent David payment for version 4.51 the other day, and today I was wondering to myself...."Gee, I hope that payment actually went through...".  Just a boilerplate e-mail from David that says "Your payment has been received and you've been added to our mailing list of registered users" would be nice.

In addition, I would like to see paying users get access to some sort of polling mechanism that would allow us to vote on features that are the most important to us.  I guess I feel like kind of a sucker when I send David money, while the vast majority of users pay nothing, and I'm treated exactly the same way as every other schlep out there. 

I have had similar experiences for the last two donations (of the three) I made which did not really boost my enthusiasm ... I am a honestly try to support the development efforts for PM (and Mercury) and I feel that there should be some sort of recognition for those actively supporting PM and Mercury. While I was disappointed about the 'no reaction', I tried to look at it positively by crediting it to a lot of work and thought it might actually be a better way of spending the money by concentrating on programming rather than answering a flood of emails. However ....

PM is still 'donation ware' so while donors have some 'stake' in it they are not really official stakeholders (?) who could have a say through stakeholder 'meetings' and vote on functionality and the direction PM and Mercury should take. However, there might be some compromise allowing those who actively support the developments (in-kind and monetary) also have a greater say or at least some assurance that their suggestions are seriously being considered (and are not lost in a jungle of forum postings).

... By the way, wouldn't setting up some sort of 'shares' and stakeholder system (to buy in) possibly be another option for future funding and participation in decisions through share and stakeholder while keeping PM for free? This would allow organisation, companies as well as individuals having a stronger say in getting a product with the functionality they require?
Any ideas?
Cheers
Thomas

Hi !

Well, one possible way of satisfying all the previous suggestions is simply a dedicated mailing list from which you can become a member only by donating. Once a member, since all members are donators, David could use this mailing list to receive all the suggestions of his donors and even discuss further improvement linked with funding issues. For instance an improvement X can emerge from the mailing list and then David could evaluate it by saying it will cost K dollars to integrate it, and then it would be up to the donors to make it happen. Of course, once X has been approuved on the mailing list, there is nothing preventing David from putting it on the forum in some sort of a "pay for feature" section that could be opened. As always, the final cut belongs to David and his gang. I only hope this post will be taken into consideration.

Cheers !

Whiskyfizz.

Yes it's taken into consideration - and has been on the table a couple of times. When I created this community I fiddled a lot with the security settings, and have therefore created special forums for licensed users of Mercury and donator users of Pegasus Mail - as a "special vip-room". The problem is administration, that simply won't happen unless automated somehow. At the time, of creation, David didn't like the idea - and I haven't brought it up since. Another issue about licensed areas, is that they compete with traditional support paths, like e-mail. Not all are that enthusiastic about forums, this engine, and there is a line of the "old-school" and this. Maybe during the fall there can be chance to revisit these ideas.

I'm pretty sure we all agree that personal communication is All & Everything in this matter, and with some stress free rest we probably can figure something out that doesn't kill us for trying. - so just throw out the ideas, both realistic and maybe not - the only thing I'm allergic to is [:'(]

Good discussion thus far.

I guess I'm not even slightly sympathetic to the "David doesn't have time to administer such a thing" argument.  I run my own one-man engineering business, too, and I spend a lot of time doing non-engineering stuff.  Actually, probably more than 50% of my time is spent doing non-engineering stuff.  Bills have to be paid, books kept, sales calls made, computers maintained, articles read, etc, etc, etc...

It ain't all fun engineering stuff.  Most of it is NOT fun.  That is the way it works when you are a one-man shop.

David, doesn't like to do the administration?  Tough luck. Suck it up and get it done.

If we look at the original posting by Yaff, it is obvious the main point is the lack of a genuine “thank you”.

I have been in the not-for-profit sector for over 20 years and have ALWAYS applied the following rule.

Everybody receives an appropriate thank you, whether it is for a $1 or $10,000 donation!! I make the donor feel part of the journey and provide the opportunity to share our vision so the donor feels like he has contributed to the success of that journey.

In this day when boilerplate paras, templates, data merge etc can be set up in a matter of minutes, it would not be difficult to set up an appropriate, well worded response which acknowledges the effort the donor has made.

(I even write a hand written note to the donor on the “form letter” adding to the personalization of the thank you.)

The other “benefits” suggested in this post could be considered but fundamental issue seems to be a lack of being thanked appropriately.And ALL people appreciate their efforts being acknowledged.

Hi !

Some things that were said in previous posts are not quite true. First, David never told or wrote that the administration side of the question was so not fun and so not cool that it takes away from him some precious time he could have used to improve his products. This was the case before and Peter thinks that it is still the case now, but in his own words, he did not bring the matter up since. Second, concerning the "Thank you" email, I have to say that when I made a donation some time ago, I receive this message from David :

% beginning of the message %

This is just a short note to thank you for your donation of on 03/01/07 in support of Pegasus Mail.

I apologize if it has taken a little while to get this acknowledgement to you - the
donation model is still quite new, and there has been a transitional period as I have
learned how to work with tools, such as PayPal, that are new to me.

I hope you found the donation process painless, but if you had any problems, please don't
hesitate to mail me directly, either at this address or at my personal address,
.

If you need a formal receipt for your donation, I can provide one by fax - just send me
your fax number and I'll get onto it... However, as a personal favour, and to reduce the
amount of administration I have to do, I would ask you to request receipts only if you
really need them.

I and my test team are working on a number of initiatives aimed at bringing the Pegasus
Mail community closer together - in particular, on a new managed web facility with blogs,
message forums and downloads all integrated in one place. The idea is that this community
site will become a kind of "one stop shop", where you can get (and give) support, download
the programs, and find out what's happening in the development process. Please watch our
main site, http://www.pmail.com, for an imminent announcement about the new community
site. Once the new site is working, we will be polling you, the community, for other
things we can do for you to make the experience of using Pegasus Mail enjoyable and
complete.

Once again, my thanks for your support - I really appreciate it, and look forward to being
able to serve you for many years to come.

Warmest regards (and "Cheers!")

-- David Harris --
Author, Pegasus Mail and Mercury.

% end of the message %

So I really wonder why Yaff did not receive such a message in the first place. Maybe David himself is not aware of this and thinks that everything is working fine. How could that be the case ? Well, maybe he used the automated capabilities of the latest version of Pegasus Mail and there is a bug somewhere. Besides, and I am only sharing my opinion with you guys, I do not think David gives a damn about the donations. I think it is a fair assessment that we all know here that he is grateful, and not saying it does not mean it is not the case. Now, since we all know that, it seems to me rather useless to send a "Thank you" message unless it is some sort of a hypocritical answer only to be polite and meet some good conduct standards that comes from who knows where. I think the best "Thank you" message that can be is simply to continue working on his products and making them available for us to use. I think it is a wrong path to choose to send the donor a message to thank her in order to make her "feels like she has contributed to the success of that journey" (BMS). The use of the expression "feels like" implies that one does not really think it is the case, hence the hypocritical content of the thank you message, and being hypocritical is not a good way of ensuring this particular donor to contribute again.

Cheers !

Whiskyfizz.

Ps : Sorry, but I forgot how to quote. Maybe someone (Peter ?) should pin down such basic using recommendations somewhere on the forum.

Hi Whiskyfizz and others,

Concerning acknowledgment of donations:
Yes, it could well be a technical fault somewhere, as suggested, but even a personal friendly request email in order to make sure that funds have actually been received, remained unanswered. So, it did not work for me in May-2008 and Jan-2009 but worked in 2007.

Concerning 'secretive' mailing lists ... ;-) for donors:
Yes, it is great for donors to get some more insights and acknowledgment. However, I feel that those donors/donations should be officially mentioned on the website (with the option not to be if they preferred) as it is custom with many sights and organisation relying on donations from the public such as Wikimedia etc. PayPal provides a provision for it, allowing donors to add a comment and tick a box saying 'do not list' etc. All nicely customisable, so why not?

Donors have to work (some very hard) for their $10, $50, $100 or whatever sum they give and I think its more than fair to give credit to their contributions in an appropriate way!

Cheers

Thomas

[quote user="BMS"]

If we look at the original posting by Yaff, it is obvious the main point is the lack of a genuine “thank you”.

I have been in the not-for-profit sector for over 20 years and have ALWAYS applied the following rule.

Everybody receives an appropriate thank you, whether it is for a $1 or $10,000 donation!! I make the donor feel part of the journey and provide the opportunity to share our vision so the donor feels like he has contributed to the success of that journey.

In this day when boilerplate paras, templates, data merge etc can be set up in a matter of minutes, it would not be difficult to set up an appropriate, well worded response which acknowledges the effort the donor has made.

(I even write a hand written note to the donor on the “form letter” adding to the personalization of the thank you.)

The other “benefits” suggested in this post could be considered but fundamental issue seems to be a lack of being thanked appropriately.And ALL people appreciate their efforts being acknowledged.

[/quote]

Well put Boris. That is exactly it.

I used the http://www.pmail.com/donate.htm link and pressed the Donate using US$
But now I'm starting to wonder if Paypal passed my email address to David. It would certainly excuse the lack of gratitude ;-)

Anyway, good replies from all of you.