Never a dull moment. <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I suppose some credit for this latest development has to go to Aron Ralston whose recent antics involving ETS and myself got a bunch of brain cells working on the part of friends and ETS supporters. As everyone who has hung around very long knows, we have struggled to find some way to support ETS financially, without simply becoming a commercial site and selling out or plastering the site whit ugly banners selling Viagra substitutes, etc. While the ETS Foundation has received some contributions, which have been a godsend at times, thanks to all who have done so, fact of the matter is they have been a drop in the bucket, or more like a drop in a lake. On a monthly basis the number of contributions we received has averaged much less than .000001% of visitors, or thereabouts. <img src="images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Dave Pulver, who has donated server space and assistance to ETS forever is an e-commerce integrator and developer who hosts some major sites and who also operates his own e-commerce sites as well. He's decided to develop a site to sell survival gear and donate a portion of the sales to ETS Foundation. We have always accepted donations and such from non-aligned retailers, same as back when we allowed them advertising when we tried that. His goal is to offer one-stop-shopping for much of the gear that I rate as adequate or better. Given that one of the common complaints I get from visitors is that they wish they could get all or most of the good stuff from a single source, that sounds like a good thing.

I have no intention of eliminating the Retail Sources page and anyone who wants to shop around for the very best price is still welcome to do so. Dave has committed to donate 10% of sales, not profits, but sales, to ETS. As such, I don't expect he will necessarily be the very cheapest place to shop, but he intends to be competitive. Only time will tell how that works out. He has some interesting plans in the works. His initial stab at this is selling PLBs via www.GetRescued.net

We will eventually be offering others the same opportunity, but I suspect without a real personal interest, others are unlikely to join in. I'd like to stress that this is being done independent of ETS Foundation, it's Dave's business, though obviously I'm offering him plenty of gear advice and encouragement.

As I said, we'll see how this works out. Hopefully it will enable us to do more on ETS while filling an existing void. Before long you'll start seeing some banners appear on ETS, and some links in various articles.

As always, thanks for your support.

Doug,

Interesting concept, it sounds like it has great potential. There have been a couple of times that I've attempted to find things listed and been unable to line up a viable source for some time.

I sat back and pondered a bit, thinking about other portions of your post...and decided to $end in some help to get ETS. I've been visiting ETS for several years now (many times just "lurking in the shadows" and reading the forums. It is really a great community, I held back for several months prior to posting, taking the time to read old threads and gain a feel for the various forumites. I'm glad to have the privelege of participating in your website and have increased my knowledge and skills as a result. I also gained a much better appreciation for the whole operation, especially after meeting with you at Shot Show 2003.

Donating has been in my mind for a while now, but it will happen. Gotta wait until payday at least though. <img src="images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Regards,
Comanche7

Thanks. Donations are still more than welcome and I don't expect that to change. To become viable financially we need to diversify our funding sources and every little bit helps.