RetouchPRO Sponsorship (trial balloon)

[Leah]

I missed all of this as the discussion happened while I was on vacation.

In my case, I donate to RP. I made my first donation fairly shortly after I'd joined, had used some of the techniques, posted to a couple of the challenges, and thought "this place is great". I've made other donations since then.

Had your sponsorship scheme been in place I wouldn't have donated anything. I would have got here, used some of the techniques, posted to a couple of the challenges, thought "this place is great", checked out the sponsorship benefits and decided that they weren't things I was bothered about -- and because you had the sponsorship system wouldn't have felt any obligation to donate money either. Also I have a twitchy reaction to "paid for" sites and virtually never take out a paid membership, while I have donated to several.

Is the amount of money you'd get in in sponsorship payments actually more than the amount you'd lose from people like me (I can't be the only one who thinks that way, surely)? My gut feeling, at the moment, is "no".

[slipchuck]

since the majority of people who use this site work with adobe photoshop...would it be an idea to contact them and see what kind of support you can get?
I think if adobe knew what kind of high quality work goes into this site maybe they can sponsor us?

another idea that came in mind is to invite some high profile companies to post some photographs that need retouched, manipulated etc.
let all take a crack at it and the company chooses the best result and that person hopefully could get a monitary payment for there work and or a certificate from that company to take with you to job interviews etc.
Of course the company would use the edited photograph as reward for the payment they awarded

just some ideas. what do others think?

slipchuck