Transparency is important, so here it is: The Money Tree.
20% of all money received goes towards paying ongoing running costs, such as electricity, internet connection and domain name fees, accounting costs, upgrading software, etc. Any money earned above the ongoing costs will be put back into developing the business and achieve the goal of encouraging more people to be more compassionate more often.
10% goes into the Metta.magazine Programs & Projects Fund. These include programs such as Writing and Re-writing Conflict, and projects such as establishing Writers’ Gardens to encourage the growth of spaces where compassionate writing and art is practiced more often and with greater and greater skill. We believe this is a very exciting part of Metta.magazine’s potential. We hope our contributors as well as our readers are willing to support it.
If we are not able to find the means or support to run these programs, the money will be donated to organisations that work along similar lines. These donations will be announced in Metta.magazine and on the website.
70% of all money collected will go towards paying the writers, photographers, artists, editors, designers, proofreaders and publicists who create each edition.
Put simply, each edition becomes a collective in its own right. By being published in a particular issue, each contributor earns a share in that collective. The people who fulfil each of the production roles also earn a share in that collective. Money donated to support Metta.magazine goes directly to supporting the people who created it.
There are a million ways to cut up a cake, so we know that there are lots of other ways we could have done it, but the way we have chosen to divide up the shares in this collective is simple and clear.
Currently, the production roles are:
Creative Director – Tim Nolan
Editor – Tim Nolan
Business Manager – Lily Mason
Layout & Design – Tim Nolan
Web design & IT manager – Lily Mason
Proofreader – Lily Mason
(We would be very happy for you, and everyone you know, to publish and publicise our and your work, but no, posting a link on your Facebook page does not make you part of our publishing team. It may, however, help raise awareness and funds to keep Metta going and pay its writers and artists, so do it!!!)
When it comes to defining a “contributor”, we don’t measure how many words or how many photos or even how many articles a person has in a particular issue. If you contributed content, you are considered a contributor.
This means that in the case of an article where one person writes the words and another does the photography, that’s two contributors. (This is the case in The dark perils of corporate art, by Kathryn Crocker and Rick Smith.) In the case of A few firsts, where Hannah Miller provided the photos and the text, that’s one contributor.
One tricky situation is interviews. If you interview someone, you (the author) are the creator or contributor, not the person you interviewed. If you want to pay them, thank them, or buy them a beer then that’s up to you.
In the case of Metta.magazine #1, Beginnings, 11 people (or organisations) contributed:
Tim Nolan, Lily Mason, Libby Twigden, Kathryn Crocker, Rick Smith, Alison Bennett Taylor, openlibrary.org, Clemens Grossman, Genevieve Nolan (for the cover photo and image, not the interview), Rachael Lane, and Hannah Miller.
With the six production roles, there were 17 shares in the collective that created Beginnings.
70% divided by 17 = 4.12%
So if Beginnings makes $2000 then each contributor will get $82.35.
Each edition raises money until the next edition comes out. That’s the survival window for each collective, so as the next issue is rolled out, the previous one is acquitted and the money sent to contributors.
If people specifically want to donate to a back issue, or to the general running of Metta.magazine, or to the Programs & Projects Fund, this can be communicated to us in the comments section of their Paypal donation.
We hope this makes things clear, and thank you in advance for your donation.
Yours,
Tim and Lily.
