Donating
Did you know?
Fawmers who donate any amount are 80% more likely to reach 14 songs, and write 64% more songs.
FAWM accepts donations through ko-fi.com/fawm
Why You Should Donate
FAWM, LLC isn’t technically a non-profit, but it operates like one. The developers and moderators are all volunteers who donate their time, expertise, and even their own money.
We choose to be funded by your support rather than by advertising, venture capital, or selling your user data. Such practices are commonplace on the Internet today, but create perverse incentives that are not aligned with FAWM's purpose.
FAWM is about making music, developing skills, and building community. If you value those things and have the means, we encourage you to donate!
Benefits Of Donating
In addition to good vibes, the FAWM website unlocks certain thank-you benefits for donating above these suggested amounts:
- For $10 or more, your profile is labeled with rock hands 🤘
- For $25 or more, you can host song demos and images directly on FAWM’s servers 🎶
Multiple donations are additive. So if, for example, you give $10 and later decide you like FAWM's built-in demo hosting, you can simply make another $15 donation ($25 total).
Despite 66% inflation since FAWM began, we have never raised these suggested amounts. If you have the means, you are welcome to donate more!
Tip: FAWM D. Rockingfeller Foundation
You can also donate on behalf of another fawmer, to "sponsor" their benefits. This is a trend that began in 2009 and has been dubbed the "FAWM D. Rockingfeller Foundation."
Simply enter the @username of the fawmer you want to sponsor in the Your message field on Ko-Fi.
How To Donate
We accept donations through ko-fi.com/fawm
Ko-Fi is a platform like Patreon, GoFundMe, and Shopify rolled into one. FAWM might offer memberships or an online merch store through Ko-Fi in the future, but for now we are only using its donation features.
Simply enter your FAWM @username in the Your name or nickname field, and/or the Your message field, so that we know who to give benefits to. If you have a Ko-Fi account and are logged in, you may only see the "Your message" field, so be sure to enter it there!
If you provided enough detail with your donation, your thank-you benefits (see above) should show up in your FAWM profile immediately and automatically. If not, don’t worry, we have a queue that lets the moderators manually link your donation to your account.
If you donated and you still don’t see your benefits after 24 hours, please email support and we’ll get sorted ASAP!
Do I need to create a Ko-Fi account?
No! You can donate to FAWM directly without creating a Ko-Fi account.
Why did Ko-Fi send me a "Don’t miss your rewards from FAWM" email?
If you do not have a Ko-Fi account, they consider your gift a "guest donation." This email is from them to encourage you to create a Ko-Fi account. We were unaware this would happen when we began the integration.
There are no "rewards and supporter-exclusive content" for FAWM at the moment that require a Ko-Fi account, and this email has nothing to do with your FAWM "rock hands" or file hosting.
We asked Ko-Fi about turning these emails off, and apologize for any confusion!
Transparency About Income
FAWM donations vary widely from year to year. Roughly 75% of FAWM revenues come from donations, and 25% from merch sales (which are really break-even).
For the decade 2015-2025, FAWM ended half the years with a profit, and half with a loss. Most years the balance sheet is close to zero, with an average net gain of $22.64 (seriously).
So your support is important!
Transparency About Expenses
All FAWM staff are volunteers, and no one draws personal income from it.
In 2022, the developers completely rewrote the website from scratch to make it easier to improve and maintain. This also made FAWM more expensive to run due to more advanced infrastructure. In fact, server costs are now more than 20 times what they were before.
FAWM's main expenses (from most to least expensive) are:
- Website (servers, file hosting, domain name registration)
- Merch (production and shipping)
- Development expenses (software/coding tools, annual dev retreat)
- Communications (mailing list, A/V editing software, etc.)
- Legal fees
FAWM also donates 10% of each year’s receipts to a music-related or time-sensitive charitable cause. Over the years, we have supported: Save the Music, Music & Memory, Girls Rock Camp Alliance, IJM, HEAR, Red Cross, UNICEF, World Vision, Pete Quaife Foundation, Stand Up To Cancer, and the NIVA COVID-19 Relief fund.