I give regularly to nwtime.org (one time , yearly) and the subscribe link is not clear as to whether a subscription goes to “the community” site, or to support the main NTP maint and development effort. Secondly, when using the subscription link I see no way for tailoring the amounts that I can chose from or it’s scope. For example , does a yearly $250 mean that it is a repeat donation? Can it be changed to another value? Same for a one time donation. I can’t see a way to change it from the $25 default.
We’re still struggling with the discourse subscription model ourselves and deciding whether to keep it or just provide a button to the NTF donate page. Here’s what I’ve seen so far wrt the Discourse version:
Advantages:
automatically updates the thermometer on the discourse page and encourages other discourse users to join in (this is an advantage to us as well as we currently have to bump the NTF thermometer as a website update)
automatically recurs, except for the one-time (which could be seen by the donor as either an advantage or disadvantage)
Disadvantages:
each subscription is a “product” in Stripe, meaning you have to create a product for each amount (2 products if you want a one-time and a recurring amount)–frankly, that’s just not scalable or convenient to anyone
the one person who has tried using it so far had it silently fail (looks like he input his security code wrong but it didn’t tell him that) so he had to go to the main website anyways to donate
donations aren’t integrated into our CRM or our notifications, meaning I get to input them manually into the CRM and need to manually reconcile where a Stripe donation came from
So, not quite what I was hoping for but I thought I’d leave it running for awhile to see if it is a convenience for discourse users or not worth the bother.
As for where the money goes, it all goes to the Foundation, similar as to you remembering to donate annually on the NTF website.
OK. Work in Progress. Maybe a button to the NTF site would be best till the wrinkles are ironed out. A little explanation in the text would help so that there could be no mis-understandings. If you want me to test stuff, I can always make small donations for you.
Let’s start with this, let me know if you think of further improvements/wordings:
Added donate button to header.
Only display the 2 membership levels and update text to indicate these are memberships.
On Monday I’ll update the text at Donate or Join as an Individual so it is clearer who the money goes to for people who come in from other sites (the current design assumption is they got to the donation page from within the NTF website).
Discourse is a bit limited on layout (eg I can’t add text around the products at Network Time Foundation or stick a donate button in there). However if there is existing text (eg button names), that can be easily reworded.
There is another issue which may crop up. My credit cards have 2FA payment security. That is , when I pay I have to provide authentification on my phone. I don’t know how that works for a repeat subscription.
That would be an interesting test for the next time you renew your membership. Both discourse and LGL (which the NTF website form uses) handle recurring payments through Stripe. And Stripe says this:
Recurring Charges: While many recurring payments are exempt from 2FA (as “merchant-initiated transactions”), if a bank requires it, Stripe Billing can automatically email the subscriber a link to authenticate the payment via 3D Secure.
Ping me in December when you’re ready to renew so we can coordinate. I’ll watch the Stripe dashboard while you try a recurring renewal from either Discourse or NTF and we’ll see if anything burps. Assuming, of course, you want to try a recurring
Good to hear.
One other thing that is apparently not taken care of in the community interface. When I donate through the NTF interface I tick the
Add 3% to my total amount to help cover the payment processing fees box. That would be something to think about.
Mike
