Sonic Retro has a pretty novel idea behind being a fansite: if it’s a site run by fans, then the site should be supported by fans. We’re not big on outside advertisers—you don’t care about home refinancing or whatever ad content would be served to a high-traffic site, and it’s no secret that in the era of AdBlock most of our readers wouldn’t see them anyway. Therefore, we feel both our readers and the site itself benefit from a donation and underwriting model.

Personal Donations

We reward members of our site for helping us out financially by acknowledging them publicly and giving them early access to any new features we roll out, early access to content like podcasts and videos, or any extra swag we have on hand. We feel that if you’re really invested in something and want to see that thing get better, you should be able to be in a partnership with those behind it. As such, we give these privileges to any member who donates more than $50 over the course of 12 months (that’s less than $5 a month!) Additionally, all current subscribers and any one-time donations made the previous month will be acknowledged publicly with a thank you post at the beginning of each month on the front page.

We strongly prefer monthly subscriptions instead of one-time donations: this makes it easier both on you (don’t have to put up-front excessive costs) and us (as we can budget more accurately for our fiscal year.) We currently offer $5, $10, $25 and $50 per month subscriptions. If you are a special snowflake who wants to donate $28.42 per month or whatever, let us know, and we’ll work something out. You can use the form at the bottom of the page to sign up for your subscription, or choose a one-time donation amount.

Underwriting

For the first time, we are also offering the opportunity for interested parties to underwrite our community as well in the form of a once-a-month post combined with our personal donors. When we thank our donors, we are also happy to thank companies and events who we feel would be relevant to a Retro audience. If you want to promote your games shop, technical service, big eBay auction or whatever, you can reach our 150,000 unique visitors per month by showing you back the same content they enjoy. Underwriting sponsorships start at $15 per month for members in good standing and $25 for others; all sponsorships are subject to Sonic Retro’s approval. And hey, if we think your thing is cool, maybe we’ll even do a whole write-up on it. 😉

For more information on underwriting, please contact [email protected] with “Underwriting” somewhere in the subject.

Making Donations

We accept PayPal accounts, debit cards and credit card transactions, with PayPal bank payments preferred—it saves everyone from having to worry about transfer fees, especially internationally. We also occasionally accept physical donations for items that Retro needs; the donation amount in this instance would be equivalent to that of Retro having to purchase the item. If you offer a service and would be interested in donating the service to Retro, either as a gift for promotion or for Sonic Retro itself, please contact [email protected]

Physical Items Needed for Donation Currently

• 4GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) RAM sticks (3)
• Digital camcorder with microphone lead-in (HD preferred)
• Bubble and padded mailers (bulk)
• Handheld digital voice recorder (mic lead-in preferred)
• Microphones

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