Donate & Support Bear Underground

Hello,

I'm hoping you've been enjoying your time here on Bear Underground. For those of you that didn't know, we are a site built and run by a cub couple here in Denver Colorado specifically for the bear community. We don't have any large amounts of funding. Everything you see on the site is the result of me spending most of my free time over the last year, and any expenses accrued, whether one time or ongoing, have been paid for out of mine and my partner's pockets.

This site has been a labor of love for me. I've poured my heart and soul into it over the last year and have been extremely excited to watch it grow since our launch. We constantly keep breaking records and have new members joining each day. The future is extremely bright for the online bear community!

However, we are not rich. Like many of you we live paycheck to paycheck. We do what we have to in order to keep this site running because we believe in this site and our members.

However, as this site continues to grow, and we continue to add more features, those expenses are increasing.

This is where we're asking for help. My intention is to keep the site free and all features open and available to everyone. What we are asking for though are optional donations to help cover the expenses associated with running and marketing this site.

Upgrades made with member donations

Thanks to the generosity of our members, we've been able to make the following upgrades to our site to make it a better experience for you:

• Chat Room Software License - Because of various bugs with the original chat room launched, we've moved to a different platform. This one has been rock solid with many users online and has been a lot of fun.
• Server Upgrade - We've changed hosts and upgraded to a more powerful server. This has helped stabilize the server (more optimized software install) and will continue to scale better as we grow due to more resources. Oh, and part of the power usage is offset by solar panels ;-)

Here is a list of our current expenses as well as some upcoming plans. This will be kept up to date:

Current Expenses

• Primary Web Server: $63 Ongoing Monthly
• Webcam Hosting: $60 Ongoing Monthly

Planned Expenses

We don't have any major upgrade expenses planned, but will update this list as those come up.

Marketing

As many of you know, most of the traffic to this site has been coming word of mouth. For that, I thank each and every one of you. Your interest in spreading the word has been invaluable for Bear Undergrounds tremendous growth.

However, we would like to be able to do some additional forms of marketing. Some things we would like to do:

• T-Shirts, Hats, and other apparel
• Booths & Banners at Bear Events
• Advertisements in relevant publications & websites
• Business Cards and other Hand Outs

Those are all things that can help greatly increase our member base, but cost money.

Additionally, as we grow, we will eventually have to bring on additional servers, etc.

How can you help?

Our members can help us ensure that not only will the site stay online, but we are able to continue adding on new features by sending us a donation. This can be in any amount you wish. You can choose to help us once, or come back sometime down the road to help us again.

I do want to stress that this is OPTIONAL! Access to the site will not be restricted to members who choose not to donate. I want to ensure that all members of the bear community will be able to use and enjoy this site to it's full potential. We understand the economy is rough for everyone right now. We just ask that you help us out if you are able.

Thank you
--
Ian Kullhem
Developer and Administrator
Bear Underground