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Your resource for raising children in Park Slope, Brooklyn |
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| Park Slope Parents Membership Fee and FAQ |
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The original letter announcing the fee along with an FAQ of answers about the new fee. FOLLOW UP EMAIL (Sent 4/6/2009) Dear PSP Members, We'd like to thank the members of Park Slope Parents for their support, patience, and tough questions during this time of transition. One of the things that Park Slope Parents has been known for is our ability to disagree without name-calling and personal attacks. Many of you have been taken aback by the news of the membership fee. Many of you are angry and would imagine from the posts that some of you feel hurt as well. For that we are sorry, since as fellow parents (and in many cases friends) our desire is to be ever-supportive of each other. We've incorporated your questions, concerns and ideas into the following FAQ to help you better understand our thinking behind the decisions we've made. We want to assure you that the decision to have a membership fee was not one that was taken lightly. We understand and accept that not everyone agrees with our decision, and, in fact, the Park Slope Parents Advisory group was not unanimous about this decision either. With a group as large as ours we had to come up with a workable solution, which meant making tough choices. We spent over 3 years deliberating it, trying other options, doing research, reading articles, and looking at other models that do and don't work. It is clear from the number of posts about the fee that the organizers of Park Slope Parents have done a great job of making the day to day operations of Park Slope Parents appear effortless. In general, potential members apply, get accepted, send and receive emails with very little contact from those who keep the list moving and messages flowing. Why, if done mostly by volunteers, does this need to be financially supported? We hope this document will help answer that question.
To move the discussion forward on the list we that people carefully read the FAQs before commenting further. Also feel free to email us at our feedback [at] parkslopeparents.com address if you want to send us a personal message. If you do post to the list, please indicate that you have read the FAQs. FAQs TABLE OF CONTENTS -How is the money going to be spent? -Why not just have a big fundraiser instead of a fee?
-Why not just sell advertising, sell more commercial posts, or charge more for commercial posts? -Why $25? -How many will join? Doesn't 13,000 members = $325,000? -Why not just do less? -Online communities should be free. It's the members that make it what it is. Why are you charging for something that someone else will provide for free?
-Will the new membership fee change the character of Park Slope Parents?
-Can I volunteer instead of paying a fee?-What do I get for my membership? -What about Yahoo! Groups Terms of Service? Do they allow us to charge? -What about my posts? Don't I own all my posts? -How will this new membership fee work? -What if the membership fee doesn't ultimately work? FAQs How is the money going to be spent? The primary use of the money we raise through membership fees will be used to pay salaries for the current Park Slope Parents staff (Susan Fox and Rachel Maurer as well as other staff whom we hope will be hired), and to pay for the website fees and for costs associated with in-person events. Here's just a sampling of what these staff do:
Park Slope Parents is a Limited Liability Corporation and Susan Fox is its sole owner. Although there is no legal obligation to provide financial statements to the public or to the membership, Park Slope Parents is much more than a legal entity. It is a membership group and a community resource and we are asking our members to pay a fee and to contribute in other ways, too, so we understand that they have a stake in the organization and want to know how the money is spent. A basic budget will be shared with the membership, and the Park Slope Parents Advisory Board will continue to receive periodic financial statements. Your membership fees will go to continuing the high level of service you have come to expect from Park Slope Parents. As the last 6 1/2 years have shown, Park Slope Parents, LLC and Susan Fox will be working to sustain YOUR community.Why not just have a big fundraiser instead of a fee? Over the years we have discussed the NPR or WNYC fundraising model and tried with little success to implement two such fundraisers. The feedback we have had from other Yahoo! groups is that, in general, these sorts of donation drives are rarely (if ever) successful. NPR and PBS have a long history of appealing to listeners for funding, so a culture of giving to support programming exists. However, they have means to make their appeals to a captive audience. They also have Ira Glass. We are not against an annual fund drive but we have not figured out how to do it successfully with the current amount of manpower and hours in the day available to us. This membership fee may in fact allow us to organize a larger scale fundraising effort that many members have recently advocated for. Finally, if everyone who can is paying the membership fee (and if who cannot pay are still allowed to join) people may have a greater sense of place in the community. FWIW, our favorite fundraising idea was a "Moderating Babes of Park Slope" Calendar, but we keep fighting over who gets which month! Why not just sell advertising, sell more commercial posts, or charge more for commercial posts?
We do sell some advertising and commercial posts.
We started charging because there were many people joining the list
just to market to our members for free and we felt that they were
taking advantage of our community. However, running an ad sales team is
not simple. Sales people (even if we were to rely on volunteers)
requires training, coordination, and a large commitment of time and
effort. It means our focus turns from providing resources to our
members to providing "return on investment" to our advertisers. So
while we love to help our local businesses by spreading their word,
past experience shows that they cannot help us turn a high enough
profit to support us. They are feeling the downturn of the economy as
well. Larger advertising clients require time and energy to secure;
we'd rather be spending our time in the local community rather than
chasing advertising dollars.
The membership fee is, in essence, a way to avoid a
mass commercialization of a community resource. Moreover, it is
irresponsible to rely on the impetuous nature of contributions and
advertising without staff dedicated to those tasks. We therefore
believe that a membership fee is the most responsible way to generate a
long-term, stable income stream.
Why isn't Park Slope Parents a not-for-profit entity?
In the past, Park Slope Parents has considered
filing to become a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Unfortunately,
common interest (i.e., parenting in and around Park Slope) does not
automatically equate with charitable purpose. Per the IRS:
One
thing to remember is that the current model wasn't working and had to
change in order for Park Slope Parents to continue to be run to the
high degree of efficiency our members have grown to expect. If a
membership fee model doesn't work, we'll do our best to figure
something else out. Since our goal is to continue to be the best
resource for parenting in Park Slope and surrounding neighborhoods,
we'll continue to strive to make this happen.
"The exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3)
are charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing
for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports
competition, and preventing cruelty to children or animals. The term charitable is
used in its generally accepted legal sense and includes relief of the
poor, the distressed, or the underprivileged; advancement of religion;
advancement of education or science; erecting or maintaining public
buildings, monuments, or works; lessening the burdens of government;
lessening neighborhood tensions; eliminating prejudice and
discrimination; defending human and civil rights secured by law; and
combating community deterioration and juvenile delinquency."
Based on the above definition, we are not pursuing 501(c)(3) status for the following reasons:
1) Park Slope Parents is a service primarily
delivered over the internet. It is not open to the general public.
The fact that it is delivered over the internet, or that it sponsors
community activities like Spring Fling and Harvest Festival does not
make us a charitable organization per the IRS definition; we do not
believe that our activities are consistent with a charitable mission.
2) Park Slope Parents is more akin to a membership
based club (Elks, Rotary, etc.) with a nonprofit designation 501(c)(7).
Membership fees to these organizations are not tax deductible. We may
consider pursuing this designation in the future.
3) Even if we were able to satisfy the charitable
purpose requirement, we believe that becoming a 501(c)(3) limits us.
As a powerful group of educated people we could attempt to organize
and influence legislation, but not as a 501(c)(3). In addition, it may
not be an action organization, i.e.,
it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of
its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for
or against political candidates (see http://www.irs.gov/charities/charitable/article/0,,id=96099,00.html).
Groups like MomsRising.com are a 501(c)(4) (Civic Leagues, Social
Welfare Organizations, and Local Associations of Employees) are not
tax-deductible.
4) Finally, a non-profit designation will actually generate more work for the moderators and advisory board members. Annual tax filings, grant writing, annual fund raising events and solicitations are extremely time consuming and there is little to no guarantee that we would be successful on a short or long term basis. The government has made it (and rightly so) more difficult for organizations to obtain 501(c)(3) status The goal of the membership fee is to reduce the workload, and a nonprofit designation would have the opposite effect. Why $25?
We have
examined a number of factors in determining our annual fee. First, we
researched other parenting groups around the country (e.g., Hudson
River Park Mamas, Mothers of Multiples in Lower Fairfield County,
Brooklyn Parents of Twins Group, Golden Gate Mother's Group, Las Madres
Mothers' Group, Palo Alto Menlo Park Mothers' Group, etc.) and found
that these groups charge families between $20 and $75 per year. Next,
we evaluated our current on and off-line activities and future
operating costs. Our best projections indicate that an annual fee of
$25 will cover our costs, factoring in membership processing fees,
taxes and changes in group size.
We
have no desire to deprive people struggling financially of their Park
Slope Parents membership; rather, we want Park Slope Parents to
facilitate mutual help and cooperation in hard times. We plan to offer
membership subsidies to families who truly cannot afford the annual
cost, not as an act of charity but as a collective solution to the
tough times we are all experiencing
to varying extents. We also recognize that some of our members have
recently donated time and/or money to Park Slope Parents, so we are
exempting anyone who made a donation in 2008 or 2009 from the first
year's membership fees, should they wish to be exempt.
How many will join? Doesn't 13,000 members = $325,000? We should be clear that our list is comprised of 13,000 members in unique email addresses only. While it is nice to see a large number on the Yahoo! Groups page the reality is that a fraction participate in or even follow discussions. With a low barrier to entry, many people join for awhile, stop individual emails or the digest then do not bother to leave. Some households have more than one subscriber (the new fee is up to two per household) and some people have multiple addresses. For these reasons we do not feel it's valid to use the 13,000 membership number as our starting point. In fact, we do not know how many people will join, how many will decide not to join, and how many haven't checked that email address in years.
The heart of the main
list is an ever-changing core of active members. As long as we maintain
a committed core of supportive parents, we believe it's unlikely that
its character will change very much. We hope, and we have been told by
many people both online and offline, that the value they derive from
Park Slope Parents is worth paying an annual membership fee or donating
their time. Even with a much smaller number of members we feel that
the group will be large enough and varied enough to continue to provide
the varied points of view and variety of classified items that our
members want and will provide enough revenue to continue all of our
activities. Members who found the size of our membership a barrier to
contributing may speak up more.
Park Slope Parents believes the community spirit, recommendations, advice and camaraderie provided by the Main List is of like value to the financial benefits to Classifieds members. We therefore feel the fee applies to members who use either or both lists. We are hopeful that that many people will be willing to pay an annual membership fee. If there are fewer we may have to rethink our decision, but we don't think it will come to that. If we have an overwhelming response to the membership fee, it will allow us to provide even more resources of interest to Park Slope Parents members. Why not just do less? The owner and moderators of Park Slope Parents feel that what we do is valuable, of enough value to continue to do it and of enough value that people will want to subscribe. There is very little we can do to scale back. The owners/moderators receive inquiries we cannot ignore. For example, we receive requests from the media or local businesses, legal inquiries/informational subpoenas), or emails about posts which were reproduced on a blog without permission. We firmly believe that a large online community without policies and without moderation degrades quickly into a venue for spam and a coarse, flame-war ridden environment. There are many other options for people who feel that route is enough for them. We also believe that the website adds great value to our neighborhood. Furthermore, we have among us a lot of experience of online communities of many different kinds and the founder, Susan Fox, has publications based on research she has done on online communities and that experience is worth supporting financially. Finally, we believe that having occasions to meet our neighbors in person, to get your kids' faces painted, to come together in one of our parks, is worthwhile and helps create a better offline community. We believe that what we offer is much more than a typical free listserv and that sufficient numbers of our neighbors will agree with us to want to help shoulder the costs with a small fee. Online communities should be free. It's the members that make it what it is. Why are you charging for something that someone else will provide for free? Yes, the Internet is "free" in the sense that it's an open worldwide network of networks. Yahoo! groups does not charge for groups and people can start another Yahoo! Group easily. There are many other groups (Urban Baby, Moms Connect, etc.) which you can join. The underlying goal of many of these other groups, however, is to sell your eyeballs, find ways to market to you, get you to click on their ads or buy their products so they can repeat this cycle. Website stickiness and use is the goal, not community building. We have never tried to keep people from starting another list and we encourage people through "other online groups" reminders and website page that there are many other groups in other communities to join. People who oppose the new fee are welcome to start a new group and run that list in any way that they see fit.
Park
Slope Parents is full of amazingly talented, educated, wonderful people
who have, over these past 6 1/2 years, contributed a wealth of
experience and support to the group. We thank each and every Park Slope
Parents member, past and present, for their contributions and hope that
this new development will not in any way decrease the support or
feelings of camaraderie you feel to other parents.
However, the work that goes into maintaining is not 'free' if the group wants to maintain an online community of this size with a high level of civility and integrity, free of spam and too much commercialization. Clearly the organizers have made the list look like it runs itself, which is both a compliment and a barrier the acceptance of this new fee. Park Slope Parents has the character it does specifically because it is both carefully maintained and informed by a sense of responsibility to the community and the other members of the list. As Park Slope Parents grew, so did the behind-the-scenes work created by that growth, including (for example): anonymous post protocols, moderation of conversations to avoid "flame wars"; mindfulness of the impact discussions can have on local businesses and individuals; soliciting and maintaining commercial posts; posting events for schools and non-profits, planning community events, and oversight of caregiver listings. Someone likened Park Slope Parents to a town square where people can freely converge and discuss issues. But even town squares need maintenance. The cracks in the sidewalk need to be fixed, the advertising flyers people leave need to be cleaned up, and if a riot breaks out, there need to be people who manage the situation so it doesn't cause permanent damage to the community. Even organizations like Wikipedia, where ALL the content is user-generated, has asked users to donate 6 million dollars to support its back-end efforts.
We manage and
maintain Park Slope Parents using certain standards, policies and
practices that we've developed over many years. We will continue to
offer those qualities to Park Slope Parents members, but in order to do
so, we determined that the members who benefit from its resources also
need to financially support it.
Will the new membership fee change the character of Park Slope Parents?
Maybe, but that the fact is that the moderators could no longer sustain the list under current circumstances. What we were doing wasn't working. We are aware that this change may decrease the number of accounts, perhaps significantly. We deliberated for a long time as to the effect this change will have on the list. We ultimately concluded that the risk of losing the community altogether through the inability to maintain its size was too great. Rather than compromise the integrity of our community, we felt that the fee, even with the possibility of reduced size, would actually ensure our ability to continue. There's no doubt we'll get smaller, but remember that this group was once very small. If it only worked with thousands of people then it would not be here today. Again, while we're not actually sure how many discrete households belong to our Yahoo! groups or the website, we know that the number is far fewer than the sum of the email addresses subscribed. Can I volunteer instead of paying a fee? Absolutely! If you'd prefer to go the volunteering route, to paint a face or help organize a clothing swap, you'll be given instructions over the next few weeks as to how you can volunteer. You should help with some of the work if you feel that doing so is worthwhile, an area of expertise and if you enjoy helping. Some of our members help by answering questions on the discussion list and by providing us with content for our website. Some help with the planning and execution of our in person events. Our moderators and advisory board consist of people who've agreed to help with the administration and the policy issues of Park Slope Parents. We are working on creating a list of yearly volunteer opportunities that can count towards membership that we'll post on the list. Please remember, though, that managing volunteers also takes a lot of time and effort. Over the years we've had our share of no-shows and people who did not come through for PSP fulfill. Therefore, if you do offer your time, please make sure that you will be able to fulfill your commitments. What do I get for my membership? You will get access to the same online community of people who share many of your same life experiences. The rules of the community are designed to provide you with a forum that is safe and if successful you will feel you can trust. You'll continue to get the same level of quality and attention to detail from our moderators as you are currently getting. We are also working on encouraging local businesses to give discounts to PSP members of good standing. The goal is to give PSP members more than $25 worth of discounts each year.Time Out New York Kids are willing to give paid members a two year subscription to TONY Kids. We're also talking to the YMCA about perks for paid PSP members. We haven't gotten all of these things in place, and frankly, we would rather people want to join because it supports the community rather than because they "get something" for their membership. If you are a business or service provider who is interested in helping out, please email us and let us know! What about Yahoo! Groups Terms of Service? Do they allow us to charge? This isn't an issue of the law but an issue of the contract between Yahoo! and its users, and it's one we have clarified with Yahoo! management. The intent of the Yahoo! terms and conditions has never been to prevent organizations using Yahoo! groups from charging membership fees. It was intended to prevent spammers and unscrupulous marketers from obtaining contact information by purchasing lists of members of a group. There are already a number of groups charging a membership fee and Yahoo! is in the process of revising their terms and conditions to make the intent clearer. Yahoo! itself has been working on a way to allow groups to charge a membership fee through Yahoo!, but unfortunately this functionality is at least 6 months away. You can read about these developments here: <http://www.ygroupsblog.com/blog/2008/07/14/whats-in-store-for-yahoo-groups/>
Yahoo! Groups terms of service
indicate that you can't sell content on Yahoo! Groups. Some have
suggested that this means we can't charge a fee for Park Slope Parents
messages. It does not. Yahoo! allows the use of groups by private,
membership-based, fee-charging organizations. We are not charging a
fee to use Yahoo! Groups. We are charging to belong to Park Slope
Parents, an organization that provides a website, two email lists, and
a variety of other services and activities. Park Slope Parents has had a long and close relationship with Yahoo! Groups. Yahoo! has been very supportive throughout our evolution and consider Park Slope Parents a model of how to run an effective group. More specifically, we have had many discussions the issue of fundraising and membership fees with Yahoo!. Gordon Strause, Sr. Product Manager at Yahoo! Groups called Park Slope Parents last week to confirm their support of our membership fee.
What about my posts? Don't I own all my posts?
Yes, you own the copyright, and we will not reproduce any of your posts without your permission. In fact, we tell others who do use content (e.g. blogs) to cease and desist (even if they say they are copying it under 'fair use'). If you do not want your posts to remain on Yahoo! Groups you can delete some or all of them by logging into the Park Slope Parents Yahoo! Groups homepage, searching for your messages, and deleting them. (NOTE: If you have had more than one email address, you'll need to log into Yahoo! with those different accounts and delete the other messages). If there is content on the Park Slope Parents website you would like to have removed, you can send us the exact text as well as the link to the website page, and we will take care of it. Since the website will remain a public resource, though, please consider leaving your posts since the website will remain available to everyone. How will this new membership fee work?
In the coming weeks you'll receive an email from
Club Express (the membership fee group we are using) asking you to sign
up (we'll also post to the list so you can be on the lookout for it).
If you pay before the May 15th deadline your Yahoo! Groups membership
will remain as it was.
If you do not sign up before the first deadline, you'll need to re-apply through Club Express, pay your dues and then be re-added to the Yahoo! groups you want to join (you'll receive an invite from Yahoo! so check your spam box if you don't get it).
What if the membership fee doesn't ultimately work? The founders, moderators, and advisory board are in this for the long term. Park Slope is a neighborhood we love and this is a forum we love. We will keep coming up with new ideas to make the community self-sustaining, if needed. We are very hopeful that the membership subscription model is one that will be satisfying to our membership and provide the financial resources to keep our community going. The Original Letter sent 3/31/09 Dear Park Slope Parents Members,
Park Slope Parents has been growing and thriving for over 6 years. In that time we have evolved into two yahoo groups composed of over 13,000 members, launched a website packed with practical advice, and conducted a ground-breaking nanny survey. We work with other local organizations to create family-friendly events like the Harvest Festival, Spring Fling and Park Slope Parents Music series.
Given our continued growth and change we
are shifting to a membership supported organization with an annual fee
of $25 per household (just over $2/month) beginning May 1, 2009. (If
you have donated either money or volunteer time to PSP in 2008 or 2009
your membership fee will be waived for the first year.)
Why the fee? The fee will support the comprehensive advice, recommendations, lively discussion, classifieds listings and community events that you already get from Park Slope Parents. Although it may seem like PSP works on autopilot, there are actually 12 volunteer moderators and 2 half-time staff and some significant costs. Much of the work of PSP is done by volunteers, and we expect that to continue, but an undertaking of this size and complexity cannot be successful without direct financial support, as well. We are deluged not only with membership requests (a good thing!) but behind the scenes work dealing with inappropriate messages, legal issues, journalist requests and website development issues which take time and resources to resolve. We are currently funded through voluntary donations (given to us by 4 percent of our members), and by ad revenues. But this is no longer enough. The current economic climate has negatively impacted our advertising revenues already, and we expect that trend to continue. We want to spend more time focusing on member issues and less time chasing advertising dollars. We surveyed the membership in 2007 and 66% of members reported they were open and understanding of a membership fee for such a strong and helpful resource.
Plus, we are planning new programs and resources to help and inform our members. Some of these new initiatives include: - Tough Times Guide—We’ll be compiling resources to help you navigate through difficult economic times, including what to do if you or your partner become unemployed, tips for budgeting and economizing, starting a babysitting co-op and more. - Career Networking Group—This is a new group composed of Park Slope Parents members seriously interested in professional networking, career change, going back to school, offering employment and/or advice to other members. We announced this group in January and there is excitement already. (Additional $10 fee annually) - Nanny Resources—We are revamping the most popular section of our website to include more specific information about how to navigate the process. - Expectant and New Parent Groups—We’ll be working with organizations such as Boing Boing to connect expectant and new parents in the hood. (Additional one time $10 fee).
- Resources for Choosing
Schools –We will be expanding and revising information on our website
to assist parents with information on local schools and how to go about
selecting a school for your child and how to optimize your chances of
getting the school you want.
Warm Regards, |
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