Legal Insurrection + Donation Buttons = ?

On Thursday, William Jacobson visited our class and discussed his blog, Legal Insurrection. During his presentation, a few students asked him questions regarding his blog's revenue model. While a small section of the right sidebar is devoted to garnering financial support from readers, the donate section is relatively hidden on the site; it appears at least a quarter of the way down the page and takes up only about an inch and a half of vertical screen space.

The donation buttons on other blogs and independent outlets are certainly displayed more prominently. Democracy Now! highlights its donations by making a separate tab for it in the top navigation bar; it's the only tab with a red background. A large green "DONATE" button graces the very top of Brave New Foundation's sidebar.

Darren Rowse at ProBlogger suggests that donation buttons are rarely successful on blogs, and their success is dependent on three criteria:

• a very large readership – a small % will always be willing to donate but to get enough to live off you’d need a large readership
• a very loyal readership – obsessed readers who simply couldn’t live without the blog who were willing to dip into their own pockets to keep it running. Of course to get this high loyalty you need to provide readers with something that they can’t live without whether that be some kind of service or fulfillment of a need of some kind.
• no other forms of income – I think sites with lots of other income streams (advertising, affiliate programs) would be likely to see a decreased chance of readers contributing as there would be a perception that the blog was already making money

Perhaps the third point is most important, especially in the case of Legal Insurrection. Having an advertisement above the fold, as well as a few advertisements placed down the right sidebar, would certainly clue readers in to the blog's revenue model. This, in turn, might make them slightly less likely to financially support the blog.

I think that Jacobson is smart for placing his donation buttons so subtly on his blog; rather than throwing the idea of donations in the faces of his audience, readers can take notice of the blog's revenue model and then decide for themselves if they'd like to dish out cash.