bplant.org Financial Statement: 2023

Show Year: 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023

Income / Revenue

In 2023 we raised a total of $4,417.41 through donations.

Our donation total represents $80 in check donations, $4,365.00 in online donations, minus $144.59 in payment processing fees and adjustments (a rate of about 3.3%.) These donations include 41 named donors through our direct donation system, 2 check donors, 3 cash donors from an in-person plant walk, 3 donors through other online payment methods, and 3 anonymous donors through Liberapay. The Liberapay donations raised $57.96, a figure which is included in our previously given totals since Liberapay donations are also processed through Stripe. Assuming the anonymous donors do not overlap, we had 52 donors, an increase of 9 over last year.

Our total donations increased by a modest $83.84 from 2022. Unfortunately, this increase is not sufficient to keep pace with inflation, so our effective total has decreased. This decrease likely reflects less focus on fundraising during the 2023 year, but it is also slightly misleading as we received a massive donation on the last day of the year which did not post until the next day, and thus will not get reported until the 2024 fiscal year. Including that donation we would have seen a large increase much larger than inflation.

We saw a large increase in the number of subscribing donors, with 6 new subscriptions, as well as multiple formerly one-time donors switching to a subscription. Also, many returning donors increased their donations.

While this is fantastic news, we remind you that we are still a long way from paying a single full-time living wage. bplant.org has no sources of revenue or financial support other than those summarized on this page, and has been constructed and maintained primarily as a volunteer effort. We would really like to be able to pay a living wage for at least one, ideally multiple people on a staff.

Expenditures

bplant.org's expenditures remain low, relying on the infrastructure for the other websites run by Merit Exchange LLC, including RateTea, 31et.com, and several others. However, our costs have increased slightly due to inflation, and as bplant.org grows, the portion of total infrastructure usage by this website has grown considerably.

The only dedicated cost specific to bplant.org is $26.13 for our domain registrar and cloud host provider. We also gave $74.42 to iNaturalist, which we heavily rely on for multiple purposes, including as a source of open-licensed images, a tool to research plant distribution, and for its social and community features to converse about plant ID, range, and other aspects of ecology. For the next year we are upping our donation to $144.

All remaining funds currently go to compensate Alex Zorach for their work on the site. Unfortunately we are still far from paying Alex a living wage, but they do greatly appreciate the current level of support!

Thank you!

Thank you to the early donors who supported us in 2023! We hope to keep up the great momentum going into 2024.