I created my site to support my online gaming guild 7 years ago, and 6 years ago chose wwwthreads to support our communication needs. At first, I did it solely off my own back because it was needed...but after some time, we put it out to our user base that these things cost money (we were having some performance issues, people bitching, and I turned it on it's head). Since then, we've subsisted solely on donations from our members, and we almost keep a guild bank account (not really, but we lists our available funds, our recurring costs, and do a few money drives every so often when we're getting low). We also have expenditures into Ventrilo servers, etc, so it's not just the website hosting.
I do like your idea of an auction tho Rose, sounds like a fun way to raise some cash for the coffers.
