I've delayed this report for a few weeks hoping to get better numbers after the NRM Board transitioned to a new Treasurer. In the financial report reported to the board at our quarterly meeting, SLF financials were not broken out of overall NRM financials. Rather than keep anyone guessing, I'll report what we know:
1st Qtr donations: $55
Website Maintenance: $180 (this covers the cost of our website host's expertise in recovering from two malicious hacker attacks)
Internet Hosting $105 (our hosting account's monthly expense is $35)
It doesn't cost very much to run a site such as ours as long as volunteers take care of the day-to-day issues and scheduled upgrades. Our annual hosting expense should be $420. If we want to add additonal features, such as blogging or a more feature laden version of the forum software, that would be extra. It is also essential that we have the funds available to recover from malicious attacks in a timely manner. Our hosting provider assists in that effort although at the cost of $90 per hour with a two hour minimum. Hopefully we'll never have to do that again, but we must be prepared.
If I were forecasting an annual budget for the site, I'd shoot for $750 to $1000 just to keep everything running and perhaps schedule an upgrade every few years.