I had to laugh at this:
In regards to this:
I believe a lot of people donate to access features that normal people don't have, although a lot of people don't wan't to admit it. The last time I donated was about 2 weeks ago-ish... I didn't gain any perks from it (due to me having Mentor/ Police Tags), but I knew that the money that I was Donating was going towards keeping the Server funded and the greatest community alive.
In my opinion, the way you will get people donating again is by adding something into the Forums/ Team-speak that is not available to anyone else (don't limit what we already have, add new stuff).
Here is what I had in-mind:
Introduce a better more customizable Forum Profile:
- Avatar galleries - A large list of animated Avatars for donators only.
- Colored Usernames - Make your username on the forums any colour you would like (from a set list).
- Custom Member Title - Add the functionality of adding limited ASCII characters, or smileys.
Introduce a Member Chat-box for everyone on the homepage:
- Coloured names appear in the chat-box for donators.
- Donators can use customised emoticons. (Like the Donator ones on Twitch.tv
Instant Messaging:
- Implement instant messaging (kinda like facebook.) available only to donators.
- Create and manage group conversations with people on your friends list.
Early Access
- Allow Donators the ability to Beta/ Alpha test new features that are coming to the community.
- Donators get the features first, (only on the forums).
Ability to GIFT Donator
- Add the ability to gift people the Donator rank.
- Once a person gifts 2 or more people Donator they get a forum tag that says "Donator Gifter" or something better.
Just some of my ideas, if I think of some more I will be sure to add them to this post, hope some of this get implemented and it might encourage people to Donate and gain some awesome perks.
Good luck,
Robert