Gold Members

The Spark is an almost entirely volunteer operation, with a tiny budget and little in the way of outside support. It’s a labor of love, and while we’d certainly like the site to be self-sustaining, and to be able to pay our writers and contributors a little something for their time, we’d like to do that in a way that agrees with the site’s overall goal of creating an active, informed and passionate community focused on all things Spartanburg.

To keep the site moving in this direction, we need your support.

One great way to support the site is to chip in a few bucks. If you use the site, and have come to rely on it being here day after day, hopefully it’s worth $10 of your hard-earned money to keep it going.

But while this will almost certainly give you a sense of pride at having supported a truly grassroots, built-from-the-ground-up initiative, it doesn’t really give you anything tangible, does it? We’re not a non-profit, so you can’t even write your donation off your taxes. But yet, we’d like to give you something for the support.

Which is why we’re introducing our special “Gold” site membership. By donating at least $10 to the site, you’ll be not only showing your support for the Spark, but also get access to special, site-specific goodies as our way of saying “Thanks.”

For those of you who’d like to contribute, but would rather not have your status as a paid member of the site advertised to everyone who visits, we’re also offering the “Secret Gold” option, which is the exact same as “Gold,” but without the “Gold” icon on every comment.

Benefits of Membership

We’ll be adding many new features for paid members over the coming months, and we’ll be updating this page as they become available. At present, these features include:

• Access to the hidden “Pure Gold” user forum.
• Special icons which appear next to every comment by Gold-level members.
• Private messaging, allowing Gold-level members to communicate directly with each other on the site.

Other Gold member features under development (meaning “We’re working on it, but we can’t guarantee all of them will become available”) include …

• A members-only classified system, allowing Gold-level members to barter with each other on the site.
• Social networking-enabled profile pages, allowing members to have their own personal pages on the Spark.
• Content ratings, allowing Gold-level members to rate the site’s content.
• Much, much more …

Granted, no one needs any of this stuff to participate on and generally enjoy the Spark, but we feel that by offering it, we’re giving you some kind of value for your donation.