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You may have seen the banner on the site this week asking for donations: our parent organization (The Organization for Transformative Works) holds membership drives twice a year, and the money raised is what pays for AO3's hardware, hosting, and maintenance costs. We don't have paid accounts or advertising, so donations from regular users are what keeps the site running and allows us to expand.
If you enjoy using AO3 and you're able to help support us, please donate today!
A few common questions:
What is the Organization for Transformative Works and how is it related to the Archive of Our Own?
The Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) is a nonprofit organization established by fans to serve the interests of fans by providing access to and preserving the history of fanworks and fan culture in its myriad forms. It's the parent organization that runs AO3 and several other fan-oriented projects.
What do you spend donation money on?
Neither OTW nor AO3 has paid employees or offices - all of the work of building and maintaining AO3 is done by volunteers like you. OTW funds and supports other wonderful projects as well (legal advocacy for fans! a fan wiki! an academic journal!) but because of the scale of the Archive, its hosting and hardware costs do make up a good chunk of the organization's expenses each year.
If you're interested in more detailed information, you can find an expense breakdown in our annual report.
Can I get an Archive invitation if I donate?
No, sorry! For privacy reasons, donations and organization memberships are entirely separate from AO3 user accounts and invitations. It's free for everyone to use the Archive, and invitations are granted by our automated queue in the order that requests come in. There may be some indirect benefits to donating: how much funding we have determines how much we're able to expand our systems, which affects the rate at which we can send out invitations. But it's not possible to directly purchase an account.