> Hi Eric
>
> > I'm not sure about charging fees. After all, this is a Community Site and everybody here donates free time to help others. This site does cost me a good amount of money in terms of hardware, energy, hosting/ISP costs, backup media, air conditioning and software licenses. I am running Google AdSense on public pages such as the Archive, Search, Article, Download and FAQ pages. I don't like to have ads on the Forum itself. The revenues from Google AdSense do compensate a little but at the end, this endeavour only costs me money.
>
> Hmmm, I confess I had never considered the financial end of things. I would willingly send you a few dollars, but I don't have a paypal account (and refuse to have one for many and varied reasons but mainly because I just don't trust their security).
>
> So how about if we set up an "Annual Support Foxite" appeal?
>
> I would volunteer to be "Co-Ordinator" for North America. I'll open a "Foxite Escrow" account at the bank and publish the routing code so people can deposit monies directly into it, or just send a check to my company address and we'll handle it from there. Then, once a month, we'll send the collected boodle off to you as a check.
>
> (Receipts will be issued, and accounting will be published - of course!)
>
> Maybe others could volunteer to do the same thing for other regions in the world?
>
> Whaddya think?
>
> Regards
> Andy Kramek
> Microsoft MVP (Visual FoxPro)
> Tightline Computers Inc, Akron Ohio, USA

Andy,

It would probably work better as a country by country thing. This could be set up as a charity and therefore any donations could be given a charitable receipt for income tax purposes. Unfortunately, a US charitable donation is of no value for a Canadian income tax return. From what I know of American charitable donations law, a Canadian charitable receipt is of no value to you either.

If we have any members of a Canadian VFP user group that is registered under the Societies Act, perhaps you might consider bringing the following up at one of your meetings.

If you are a registered not-for-profit society, you can issue tax receipts for donations. You can also register with Canada Helps - a neat little website that allows donors to donate online with a credit card. Canada Helps will issue the charitable receipt and deposit the donation in your bank account (less a 3% credit card transaction fee) - a no work solution. All your user group would need to do is write Eric a cheque periodically. Check out Canada Helps at http://www.canadahelps.org

Ken
You shall know the truth - and the truth shall set you free. (John 8:33)