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ddavison
August 25th, 2014, 15:31
SmiteWorks contributes $3006.00 to the Climate Reality Project

Thanks to the contributions of our Fantasy Grounds community, we were able to match their contributions for a charitable cause. While the exact impact of climate change is a subject of much debate, our community responded with action to help fund an organization dedicated to raising awareness and providing information and support for those who want to take action.

Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that man-made climate change is a reality. By acting now, we can help limit our impact on the environment to ensure that our children will continue to have the same opportunities we had to enjoy our natural surroundings. While we don't expect people to live with a zero-carbon footprint, every little step we take can be multiplied by the millions of people making those improvements and help affect change.

About Climate Reality
In 2006, Nobel Laureate and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore got the world talking about climate change with the Academy Award-winning film An Inconvenient Truth. It was just the beginning of a climate revolution, and later that year, he founded The Climate Reality Project to take the conversation forward and turn awareness into action.

The Climate Reality Project is a diverse group of passionate individuals who have come together to help solve the greatest challenge of our time. We are cultural leaders, marketers, organizers, scientists, storytellers and more, and we are committed to building a better future together.

Read more at https://climaterealityproject.org/

ddavison
August 25th, 2014, 18:59
Going forward, we will now begin collecting contributions for the Save the Children Fund and will match contributions that way as well.

Nylanfs
August 25th, 2014, 21:27
And we can donate where?

Mellock
August 25th, 2014, 21:53
I seem to have missed the memo as well, but would like a link/more info too!

ddavison
August 25th, 2014, 22:27
Hey guys, we have an option during checkout to donate $1 as part of your order. Unfortunately, we don't have a direct way to contribute outside of our order process. You can, however, click the link from our Store confirmation page to visit https://www.savethechildren.org/ and contribute directly -- or go there without going through the store at all.

Unholy_Wind
August 25th, 2014, 23:13
And over how many weeks were those $s collected?

ddavison
August 25th, 2014, 23:16
Well... it was supposed to be sent to the Climate Reality Project (or the previous name Alliance something or other) at the end of each year, but I let it lapse a bit. There were 1503 individual $1 donations dating back to October 2009. We matched it, hence the somewhat odd final tally of $3006.

Unholy_Wind
August 25th, 2014, 23:21
...I let it lapse a bit...

Woah. Would you like an Understatement of the Year Award with that statement?

Is it too forward to ask what % of transactions included a Donation?

ddavison
August 25th, 2014, 23:29
The overall percentage was fairly low, but it still added up to be quite a bit. I don't see a whole lot of value in finding the exact percentages.

Unholy_Wind
August 26th, 2014, 01:28
Not for yourself, perhaps...

Figuring a generous 20%, that's over 7500 transactions. Figuring a very low-ball estimate of $5 per transaction, that is $37.5k...
Figuring a less generous 10% would be over 15000 trans. Figuring a higher-ball estimate of $30 per transaction, that is $450k...

Blind math is such fun...

ddavison
August 26th, 2014, 02:44
If you are just trying to calculate revenue, you can look at the last annual report we posted to the smiteworks.com website. I haven't updated it in recent years.

Unholy_Wind
August 26th, 2014, 12:19
That was indeed my aim. Thanks for the hint! A bit disturbing that it isn't up-to-date, though...

Andraax
August 26th, 2014, 14:11
A bit disturbing that it isn't up-to-date, though...

I'd rather they spend their time working on the code, myself...

ddavison
August 26th, 2014, 14:45
I originally shared this sort of information with a goal to maintain transparency and community. Unfortunately, while this did occur, there were others who merely used this information to justify creating their own competitive systems. A look at potential revenue without also looking at the effort involved to reach that point and maintain/continue to build upon it can lead people to believe that delivering a quality, and highly supported VTT is an easy way to work in a field you love and make money at it. The number of failed and partial solutions which have sprung up over the years can attest to that.

VenomousFiligree
August 26th, 2014, 17:11
Hey guys, we have an option during checkout to donate $1 as part of your order. Unfortunately, we don't have a direct way to contribute outside of our order process. You can, however, click the link from our Store confirmation page to visit https://www.savethechildren.org/ and contribute directly -- or go there without going through the store at all.

I didn't think that the previous project was worth donating to, however the new one I do. So I will be sure to donate when you get all the 5e modules up for sale! ;)

ddavison
August 26th, 2014, 17:15
Fair enough. That's the beauty of optional donations.

I would have probably chosen this one over the other project, but since I didn't change it on our website, I needed to honor the donation that people chose to support at the time. For me, it's too political of an issue here in the U.S. and ends up spurring arguments that are not too unlike edition wars for RPGs.

Unholy_Wind
August 26th, 2014, 19:48
I originally shared this sort of information with a goal to maintain transparency and community. Unfortunately, while this did occur, there were others who merely used this information to justify creating their own competitive systems. A look at potential revenue without also looking at the effort involved to reach that point and maintain/continue to build upon it can lead people to believe that delivering a quality, and highly supported VTT is an easy way to work in a field you love and make money at it. The number of failed and partial solutions which have sprung up over the years can attest to that.

And you publicly announced this as the reason you stopped dropping the Annual Report, right? Of course, who would even care...