I don't think we are berating him, I just think he was the unfortunate one to make the joke & then for staff to to pick up on the comment and with the way things are it becomes more than what was meant.
As I said above, I don't want him to feel disheartened about it, I understand where he is coming. In fact, if I wasn't staff I would have probably said the same thing (as a joke). We know you are not all stupid, we know that you understand where we are coming from and the financial pressures we face.
We have many students as staff, we have many family staff members well & donating and paying costs is taken money needed for running our families & studying costs.
As for donating and becoming more transparent, I'm with you on that, I think we need to show people as to how much we have received in donations and how much we are away from hitting the donation target for the month. I don't think it will happen but I do a more advanced application in mind for donations which will give us a greater oversight and control.
I also think with the plans for subscriptions, we will have a more in depth idea of what we have available. We are looking to at given more rewards for members that donate and subscribe, so that you receive something for the contributions.