An Open Letter to Fans

Fellow footy fans,

(Update 1/29/20: 11 fans have donated $300 so far. Thanks! We still need about $275 to get us thru this month into next and at least $2,000 by mid-February to get thru the AFL season. Update 2/13/20: We have taken cost saving measures but we still desperately need your donations and support. Please help.)

As many of you have noticed there has not been much activity recently on the site in the lead up to the 2020 AFL and AFLW seasons. There are several reasons for that. One reason is my need for a break after 25 years. More urgently though, is the severe financial crisis AFANA continues to confront and the personal time, energy, and funds it has required. 

Any not-for-profit entity, particularly small ones, always lives on the edge. It is a delicate balance between available resources and needs. AFANA is no different. We have persevered during good years and bad. The past 18 months though has been particularly trying. Lingering unpaid bills from our last web site redesign / upgrade and a sudden and dramatic decline in both of our major sources of revenue has often required me to pay hundreds of dollars out of my own pocket to keep the organization and website afloat.

Due to changes in policy at WatchAFL, we saw a year over year decline in revenue last year from subscription sales referrals of nearly 50%. Added to that were long delays in payments from WatchAFL. The changes in these policies often resulted in cash flow dropping to near zero in 2019. When you click on one of our WatchAFL links, we benefit (sometimes). If it has been more than 30 days since you last clicked on the link on our site or if you renew through WatchAFL, we get nothing. They don't provide us a "renewal link". Since the fan base is not growing at 50 to 100% per year, we cannot compensate easily.

If your name is not "Google" or "Facebook" then website advertising is minimal so must also depend on donations from fans like you. With the changes in the federal law on charitable donations, most small not-for-profits have seen a decline in donations over the past year. Usually December and early January is one of our best times. This year, we received less than $100. We're not getting the $10 and $20 donations of the recent past and the big donors, who used to give $100 to $2000 per year, have all but disappeared.

In October, we conducted a fundraising campaign aimed at past donors and website registrants and that bought us a couple of months but we can't keep going to the same well over and over, we need new supporters. We don't receive any funds from the AFL or Fox Sports US.

If the situation does not change, I will be forced to suspend operations and the website within days or weeks as I cannot continue to pay for the shortfall on my fixed income.

If you want to help, please click on the yellow "Donate" button along the blue bar near the top of almost every page. We also have a GoFundMe. If you prefer another method, please get it touch by using our Contact page and I will try to accommodate you.

Thanks for all of the support the past quarter century.

-Rob
Co-founder and webmaster