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Supporting the IRFCA Server

Dear friends, running the IRFCA.org web site does not come for free. The costs for the server that hosts the web site work out to about US$140 a month -- about $1650 a year. This is just for the running of the server; in addition there are costs such as domain registration, incidental expenses for server reports, etc. Please note that all the money goes towards actual external expenses. The work of maintaining the server and updating its content is done by volunteers who work entirely without compensation.

This may seem like a lot for a web site, but the fact is that IRFCA.org is not the typical personal web site that can be hosted cheaply, since it has thousands of visitors every day, and serves up a lot of content, including video clips and images. For a sense of the numbers, note that as of April 2005 the content of the site occupied about 35GB of disk space, and downloads were running at about 80GB/month -- and these numbers are expected to grow in the coming months and years! Furthermore, we want the IRFCA.org server to be hosted with a reliable service that gives us little down-time and plenty of flexibility in installing and running the software that powers the web site.

Please donate to support the site and keep it going!

You can donate using PayPal, which lets you donate using a credit card or by bank transfer. You do not need to open a PayPal account - you can just use your credit card through PayPal. You can also donate by writing a check (cheque). At present only checks for US dollar amounts drawn on US banks can be accepted.

Donations of any size are welcome! Please be generous for the site you know and love to visit. The current status of donations x is shown below. Our goal is to have enough funds on hand so that the web site can be assured of running without interruption for at least a year out in the future at all times. This will allow us to plan for and handle any required routine server maintenance, and also provide for unexpected costs, possible changes of hosting plan or transfers to other hosting companies, etc., in an orderly manner.

Please do not send cash by mail as it can get pilfered, especially with international post. In any case, we do not have facilities for exchanging foreign currency, so cash donations from places other than the USA will be unusable. Using PayPal is fast and convenient and avoids all problems of exchanging currency or delays in check deposits.

Indian residents: Many of you have expressed interest in supporting the site but do not have access to a credit card to use PayPal. Currently we do not have a way to accept rupee-denominated cheques or demand drafts and the like, but we are looking into this. Meanwhile, the easiest option appears to be to have the donations be sent through someone you know who can use a credit card through the PayPal link above.

Read more about IRFCA and its history.

Donations - 2005-2008

Donors

Donations from the following are gratefully acknowledged!
(Some donors have asked to remain anonymous.)

Current status

The campaign to raise money for the IRFCA server started on April 16, 2005. As of 2008-12-10, an amount of $5871 has been raised by your generous donations. This will allow the web site to continue operating without any problem through January 2011! Our goal is to have enough money in hand so as not to be worried about the fate of the web site for about a year out into the future. Please help us by donating so that we always have enough money for at least a year.

Several enquiries have been received asking about the recommended donation amounts or the typical donation amounts being contributed for the web site. While we do not wish to reveal who donated how much for the site, some statistical information on this topic may be interesting. The following is the approximate distribution of donation amounts received, in US dollars.

Donation Distribution
<$10	$10-$19	$20-$25	$26-$50	$51-$99	$100	>$100