We want to keep Listen2Russian.com free for public use, and so we are seeking a sponsor instead of charging membership fees.
The reasons we need a sponsor are:
1. To keep the site online. Listen2Russian has recently been included as an internet resource for many 1st-year Russian university courses throughout the USA, England and Australia. As a result, the site's traffic has gone through the roof, and with the current growth rates and hosting plan (20 GB) the site will only be online for the first 2 weeks of every month. Of course we won't let that happen, but a sponsor will assist us in this regard.
2. To develop new content faster. Currently it takes us about 10-12 hours of computer-time to create each new lesson. Since all the staff here work full-time during the week, this means that we are only able to produce one new lesson every 2 weeks or so. With sponsorship we can devote more time to the site and produce one new lesson every week, which will keep our regular users happy, and help us achieve our mission of making Listen2Russian one of the world's best resources for learning basic Russian.
3. To fund the recruitment of new native Russian speakers. All the audio resources on Listen2Russian are generously donated by Lena and Irina, and we have had a very difficult time finding any male Russians who would like to contribute. Therefore we would like to use part of our sponsorship funding to employ a wider variety of Russian speakers so that our students can become familiar with the diversity of the spoken Russian language.
Our options for sponsorship
Our main criteria is that the sponsor must promote a product or service that is relevant to the people who use this site.
We have several options for sponsorship.
1. A single sponsor with their logo appearing on every page of the website, in the grey column.. see example ---->
The ad must be tasteful, blend with the theme of the site, not be too distracting, and not show any adult or provocative content as many children use this site. We would prefer this type of sponsorship.
2. Google Adsense. If significant single sponsorship isn't available, then we will incorporate Google Adsense into the lesson content and try not to detract from the ease of learning or finding what you need to know. The only problem with this strategy is that sometimes the links Google provides aren't completely relevant to the site's content.
For example,
3. Multiple small sponsors with their logo in the right-hand grey column. However, we would like to constrain the design layout to one logo per page, so as to minimise distraction from the lessons.
Benefits for the Sponsors
In one year we aim to make Listen2Russian one of the best Russian learning resources on the internet. It was only launched in late-December 2006 and already there are a large number of regular students visiting the site. If the themes of your sponsorship are consistent with the needs of the people who use this site then we are confident many people will be interested in what you have to sell. However, it's up to you to give our visitors good value for their money.
Benefits for the Students
We hope our future sponsor will be able to offer our students a relevant product or service at a good price. For example, language classes in Moscow, Russian language learning software, or discounted flights and tours to Russia.
Contact Us
If you are interested in sponsoring Listen2Russian.com, or would like to give us feedback about our sponsorship plans, then please Click Here.
