Thank you. Donations are always appreciated.
Donations effectively go towards the costs for hosting and maintenance of the website. Donations make a smaller portion of the money made (Google Ads being the primary stream of funds). I think on total average we make about $40-50 a month from donations. They were setup mostly by request from members wanting to contribute. The hosting costs alone are about $130-140/mo. I don't think I'd feel comfortable if direct donations exceeded those costs, which is why I made the amounts of donation pretty small ($1 to 3/mo). For the first 6-7 years or so, I had paid all costs for the site completely out of pocket (servers, network connectivity, etc.). So, if Google Ad Revenue exceeds costs a little, I don't mind accepting a little movie-night money now and then.
Although, I also have to file taxes on all the revenue, so it's a good thing that Google Ad revenue does exceed costs. But mostly, stuff goes towards hosting and maintenance.
For the donation, you get a little logo next to your name on all of your posts for the period of time "sponsored". So, if you donate $3 for "Gold Sponsorship", it puts the Gold Sponsor logo there for one month. Most people do the $3 Gold Sponsor, but there's also a $2 and $1 option to (Silver and Bonze levels). There's no added access (everything except the For Sale forum is available anyway for people). You can find out more info and/or donate here:
http://www.beardeddragon.org/payservices/sponsorship/
Cheers,
-Alex