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Donations

Did you know?

Fawmers who donate any amount are 80% more likely to reach 14 songs, and write 64% more songs.

Why donate to FAWM?

FAWM, LLC isn’t technically a non-profit, but it very much operates like one. The developers and moderators are all volunteers who donate their time and expertise.

We choose to be funded through your support, because that frees us from incentives that come along with advertising, VC-backed funding, or selling user data, which are commonplace on the Internet today but not necessarily 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 suggested amounts:

  • For $10 or more, your profile is labeled with “rock hands” 🤘
  • For $25 or more, you can host your demo songs directly on FAWM’s servers 🎶

Note

Despite 66% inflation since FAWM began, we have never raised these suggested amounts.

If you have the means, you are of course encouraged to donate more.

You can also donate on behalf of another fawmer, to “sponsor” their benefits. (A trend that that started in 2009 and has been dubbed the “FAWM D. Rockingfeller Foundation.”)

How to donate

For 2025, we are accepting donations through ko-fi.com/fawm

Ko-Fi is a platform like Patreon, GoFundMe, and Shopify rolled into one. FAWM might offer memberships and an online merch store through Ko-Fi in the future, but for now we are only using its donation features.

Why is FAWM switching to Ko-Fi?

For several reasons:

  1. PayPal no longer supports the donate button process we used to use
  2. Ko-Fi was simpler to integrate that PayPal's new process
  3. Ko-Fi supports more payment methods (including but not limited to PayPal)
  4. The integration should make it faster and easier for you to get your donation benefits

Do I need to create a Ko-Fi account?

No! You can donate to FAWM directly without creating a Ko-Fi account.

Simply make sure you enter your FAWM username in the “Your name or nickname” box and/or in the “Message” box so that we know who to credit with your gift. If you do have a Ko-Fi account, you may only see the “Message” box, so be sure to enter it there!

If you provided enough detail with your donation, your benefits should show up in your FAWM profile immediately. 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 [email protected] and we’ll get sorted ASAP.

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 are in conversation with Ko-Fi about turning these emails off, and apologize for any confusion!

Transparency about income

FAWM donations vary widely from year to year, and income is unpredictable. Roughly 75% of FAWM operating revenues come from donations, and 25% from merch sales.

For the decade 2015-2024, 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 maintain and improve. This also made FAWM more expensive to run due to more advanced infrastructure. In fact, server costs alone are more than 20 times what they were prior to 2022.

FAWM's main expense categories are (in descending order):

  • Website (servers, file hosting, domain registration)
  • Merch (production and shipping)
  • Development expenses (software, code management, annual dev retreat)
  • Communications (mailing list, media software for social posts)
  • 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.