As we come around to the end of the year, it is time for annual fundraising appeal – If you found this website useful, and if you are in a financial position to do so, please consider supporting this website by buying me a virtual coffee. SEAArch | Southeast Asian Archaeology started out as a personal project in 2006 and over the years it has grown into a repository of information for scholars, researchers and enthusiasts worldwide. Besides maintaining an archive of news stories, my goal is to make the website a useful online resource about the archaeology of Southeast Asia. I post updates on job listings, newly-published papers, and create detailed resource pages – this year’s most popular resource pages are the ones about the Archaeology of the Philippines, and Unesco World Heritage in Southeast Asia.
While I work on this website in my personal capacity, it also complements my professional life and it’s great to be able to continue maintaining this website for years. As of November 2022, I have indexed over 7,000 archaeology news stories from or about Southeast Asia; the website reaches over 50,000 users every year, 7,600 followers on Instagram, 3,000 followers on Twitter and 9,000 followers on Facebook. I am finding an increasing number of Wikipedia pages that link to this site (although I don’t know which pages are linking here), and also a number of users visiting the site through virtual classrooms – definitely a good thing!
Currently, it costs a little over US$1,000 a year to maintain the website with the bulk of costs going towards web hosting and several security and optimisation plugins that keep everything running smoothly. These are paid out of my own pocket and are offset by the advertising, affiliate links on the site, and through the fundraising platform Buy Me a Coffee. The best and most direct way of supporting the site is through Buy Me a Coffee for which you can make a contribution by buying me one or more virtual coffees. This year I’ve started a monthly membership subscription which starts as little as $1 a month which goes towards the upkeep of the site, with rewards for higher membership tiers.
On that note, I would like to thank the following supporters from this past year: Alison Carter, Ya-Liang Chang, Nick Coffill, Erika Daum-Karanitsch, Hsiao-chun Hung, Lalaine Little, Terry Little, Louise Macul, Martin Polkinghorne, Spencer Wells, and many others who have chosen to remain anonymous. Thank you very much! Your support is always appreciated!
If you are not in a position to Buy Me a Coffee, there are other ways you can support SEAArch. The best way is to spread the word of this website to friends, colleagues and contacts about SEAArch by mentioning it in social media or by sharing the website with them. Another way is by sending feedback on how to make this site more useful – whether you are an archaeologist, educator or an interested member of the public.
Happy Holidays, the news updates will continue until the end of the week and then it might be quiet until the new year!
