Ickie, first and foremost I havn't yet made a donation. I will do soon, but at the minute I'm spending every penny I get on the bare essentials as it is. You will, however, receive a donation in the near future.
I do, however, have one suggestion - but it may not be popular.
My suggestion is to eliminate the download section of this site.
Although convenient (and with excellent content) I see it as a huge huge drain on resources and cash which is avoidable. Avsim/simviation and Flightsim all have extensive librarys that the files are all posted to anyway, and frankly it seems a little over the top to host so many files for so many people when the same people could provide a quick link to one of the large file hosts!
I don't think that would damage the community at all, because this place seems to be exactly that, a community. The only major difference would be that instead of someone posting 'now available for download in FSX resources,' they would be saying 'now available at this link:etc'
It wouldn't hinder any of the interactions on here, nor change the content of the forums, it would simply mean that you had to spend an extra 20 seconds going to one of the major file librarys. In return your costs would reduce hugely I imagine! Plus the workload.
P.s. When I refer to 'major sites' I am not implying that this site is not 'major.' I am simply referring to the fact that websites such as Avsim etc have huge file libraries, significant advertising investment etc all which allows them to host these files without such concerns over financing.
Regardless, thank you for all your hard work, I'm coming to really love this site.