blogUT Needs Your Help!
March 16th, 2011 by Leah Henrickson | Junior Editor
Being university students, we’re all broke: we steal ketchup packets and plastic forks from McDonald’s, we ‘borrow’ envelopes and office supplies from our jobs, we are always on high alert for free food at events, and we trek it all the way to Yorkdale by bike because the subway is too expensive.
This includes us at blogUT. Here’s our situation: We didn’t receive any money from UTSU last year and have yet to receive funding for this year (and are anxious about whether we’ll even get approved for it). Currently our only source of revenue is Google Ads, which hardly generates any money, so we’ve been taking money from our own pockets to pay for things such as our hosting fees, an ad in the UTSU handbook, and a banner for clubs day (as seen in the photo). We would love to put some money toward advertising because a lot of U of T students still don’t know we exist even though we’ve been around for 4 years.
Currently, we are $325 in debt and if we don’t get any money in this year, we’ll be in debt by at least another $100 by the end of the year.
As such, we’re putting up a PayPal button on the site for anyone who would be generous enough to throw whatever amount of money our way to help keep this blog running and awesome. We’d really appreciate literally any amount of money you’re willing to part with.
For your convenience, we also put the button here:
However, if you can’t afford to donate (OSAP really doesn’t give enough), any ideas for ways we can fundraise would also be greatly appreciated.
Edit: Some more details about why we didn’t receive money last year…
The UTSU requires that all clubs attend a mandatory training session in order to be eligible for funding. We accidentally missed the email that notified us of the session. Later on in the year, they did give us some money, but the amount was just slightly less than what we owed them for purchasing an ad in the student handbook.
We should have waited until after receiving funding to purchase the banner, which was the most expensive thing we bought ($200) but we wanted to have it in time for clubs day in September, and typically the UTSU only issues cheques around November/December. As for the hosting fees, we don’t really have a choice in whether or not we want to pay.
March 16th, 2011 at 5:09 pm
Just made my donation – great blog – keep working hard to get the word out about all the great things happening here. I encourage all readers to consider how many events or interesting places they have found out about through blogUT – and what is that worth to you? I’m sure you can spare $20 to keep that kind of information flowing.
March 17th, 2011 at 1:59 am
You could try organizing a fundraiser event of sorts… not sure what type of event though…
It could also be arranged with another club, so you don’t have to do all the prep work…
Good Luck!
March 17th, 2011 at 12:17 pm
This comment really made my day. Thank you so much!
March 17th, 2011 at 9:30 pm
Wow, thank you so much for that comment Paul. Appreciate it greatly and makes this blog’s life worth living
Thank you Leeorr for the idea. We definitely would like to host a fundraiser event but want to do something unique as there are so many student groups vying for le moolah!
March 17th, 2011 at 11:24 pm
You can do movie screenings or other similar events that can be advertised for free in The Varsity. I also know that bake sales do work (they may not seem like they do, but it’s about the timing). I had one last friday around lunch time in SS and we sold out. Mind you, we didn’t make a whole lot, but it’s just a supply vs demand thing and how you price it.
There’s also adf.ly, but I’m not sure how much money you can generate from that.
I’m so sorry I couldn’t donate. I don’t have any means to donate online and I don’t have a job (I still live off my parents), though if there was anything I could do in person (like, give you an envelope with some money or some manual labor) I would gladly help as much as I can.