новини

Dear OrthPhoto users - photographers and visitors of OrthPhoto. As you probably know our website is managed by a team of volunteers who dedicate their free time to organize this space for sharing orthodox photos and presenting the beauty of Orthodox worship, our churches, our icons, our people, all of Orthodoxy. Until now our site has been totally sponsored by an Orthodox Initiative, OrthNet, which is the owner of the Orthodox Internet Service: cerkiew.pl (a web site for Polish Orthodox people). During the six years of our existence, we have had exponential growth as the number of photos on the website as well as users and visitors, have greatly increased. But, now all the funds we get to operate the website are obtained from the various projects organized by the website http://www.cerkiew.pl Because the amount of space our website takes up is much greater than it was in the past, we can no longer completely rely on the support of OrthNet and http://www.cerkiew.pl. The website, cerkiew.pl is operated by a group of volunteers with limited resources and their funding at this point is very limited and insufficient for both services to be financed by them. We have been intending to take responsibility for what we are doing and we hope that we have developed enough to be able to do so. We also have plans to increase the number and size of photos which can be uploaded along with other improvements to the OrthPhoto site. We have ideas about how to improve our site but this can only be done with a stable financial situation. Below we present the budgets and descriptions of what we want to do if we will be able to collect necessary funding. Minimal Budget - 2 000 Euro: This amount is what we have to secure if we want to have the site and allows us to coordinate work on the site in the way it is done now. We will also be able to do on-going small changes in the system. In addition, if we collect 2000 Euro, we will be able to increase the size of the photos that can be uploaded and allow users to upload photos more frequently. To sum up, we need 2 000 Euro to cover the basic costs of server. Normal Budget - 20 000 EURO: We have a dream in which we could employ at least one person who could work on the site. This would enable us to: - further develop our site (according to your needs - adding photos to favourites, creating new look of orthphoto, improving the voting system etc.); - organize: 1 exhibition, 1 workshop with exhibition, print calendar and maybe 2 albums (one for workshop and one for exhibition); - organize database with High Resolution photos available for use of church media (web pages, newspapers, printing houses) so that your photos could reach not only users of the internet; - have available subdomain for you ([name].orthphoto.net - with email [name]@orthphoto.net) - do extra actions which can help our churches or local orthodox organizations (like promoting events, mission activities etc.); - develop new ideas and help in development of our users; - write grants for projects; - open local branches of orthphoto; - and explore many more options depending on our ideas and creativity; We believe that if we can reach the normal budget this year, then in subsequent years we would be able to reorganize our work to make orthphoto self-financed. Before our 6th anniversary we have decided to start trying to collect funds and we hope that you will help us. If you are willing to help us we will be more than happy to accept your suggestions and any kind of help: - if you know any possibility for us to apply for a grant, or are familiar with any sponsor we can turn to for help, please inform us; - if you want to help us with fundraising, please contact us via e-mail; You can also donate some money to our account, even the smallest amounts mean a lot to us. The progress of our actions and the amount of money still needed to achieve our budget will be visible on the banner promoting this action. If you decide to donate some money to us, please, don't forget to add your email or login from OrthPhoto. When we receive money we will inform you about this and ask if you wish to be mentioned on the list of donors. Here are the details of OrthNet organization needed for sending the money: Acount number: PL15102013320000100202095222 code BIC (Swift): BPKOPLPW Title: orthphoto - login from orthphoto or email address organization: OrthNet ul. Św. Mikołaja 3 15-420 Białystok Please help OrthPhoto to continue to exist as an Orthodox Photo website and to develop various options for the Orthodox Church!!!