Dear Friends,

hort.net is a tremendously valuable resource for the Internet gardening community. It contains a large gallery of plant photos, hundreds of links to other Web sites, and mailing lists where people can share their gardening experiences, meet new friends, and just 'hang out'.

As you may have noticed, development of hort.net has slowed tremendously. The image galleries haven't been updated regularly, mailing lists are slow, and new features haven't appeared on the site for a while. That's not to say that it isn't a great resource it's just not as good a resource as it could be.

There's a reason for this. As many of you know, I'm the sole maintainer of hort.net and use any income from Mallorn Computing, Inc. to keep hort.net running. It's great that hort.net's popularity has been increasing, but it's a double-edged sword. The income that Mallorn is generating is no longer sufficient to keep hort.net going. I've been doing extra work and have paid about $4000 out of my own pocket for equipment and bandwidth this year, but it's obvious that I can't keep doing this. hort.net is no longer fun; instead, it has become a moneypit and timesink.

If we can get money from other sources I'll have more time to work on hort.net and make the site better. I won't have to worry about money and it will become fun again! To continue operating, hort.net needs about $2000 per year. If we raise $10,000 we will have enough to keep hort.net operating for another five years if Mallorn maintains the same level of income. If we raise $15,000 we will be able to upgrade our server hardware to add new services, speed up the site, and fix equipment as it breaks or becomes outdated. If we raise $20,000 or more we could add extra servers.

Remember, even small donations can help us reach our goal! $20, $10, or even $5 is appreciated and can be used. Of course, larger amounts will help us get there faster.

I will post updates on this Web page. Thank you for all of your help.

Sincerely,

Christopher Lindsey

If you wish to make a donation, you may do so via PayPal or through the mail at Mallorn's offices. Mail is preferred since PayPal takes a portion of all money that goes through their system, but PayPal will let you donate via credit card.

Click this button to make a USD donation via PayPal / credit card:

You can send donations via US mail to the official public record address of Mallorn Computing, Inc.

Mallorn Computing, Inc.
702 W Vermont
Urbana IL 61801

Mallorn Computing is a for-profit organization, so any donations are not tax-deductible. The purpose of these donations is to help offset the high costs of hort.net (which is owned by Mallorn) so that we can continue providing quality services to the Internet gardening public. Every penny that Mallorn has ever made has gone back into hort.net.

Please do not send currency through the mail. Also, sending any foreign drafts, checks or other negotiable instruments may entail significant collection costs, an international postal money order or a check drawn on a US banking institution will make sure your complete donation goes to Mallorn (otherwise foreign collection costs will be deducted by Mallorn's bank from your contribution). Sending a foreign check to the United States may involve fees in excess of $50 for the processing of the check (or any other kind of draft) if it is drawn on a foreign bank outside the United States. International postal money orders payable in the United States are acceptable and available in post offices in many countries.

Questions or comments

If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to ask Chris. You can reach him via email at lindsey@mallorn.com. He'll be happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Thanks!

Please, keep those contributions rolling in! We can make hort.net a much better place together!