Could we see email Mirror please?

If I had to venture a guess, I would think that it started with VS agreeing to pay NUM what NUM estimates it costs to do what it does for that many subscribers (although there are no fees, it costs money that I think comes from grants and donations.) Like, as a corporate sponsorship donation. And then somewhere along the line something got twisted and whomever wrote that email thinks that they're paying fees that the escorts would be paying.

If that's the case, then I think VS could have done something effective, helpful, AND good for their public image by saying that they're going to donate X amount for every advertiser and that they've set up an easy way for each advertiser to be enrolled in the NUM alerts.

To be honest I thought this was very unreal vivastreet implying they pay ugly mugs for each escort who advertises with them.  Since when? what contract do viva street have with ugly mugs?. If I know then might be able to understand where viva are coming from. Viva talk like we should be grateful when really viva should be grateful we advertise with them paying our hard earned money for years.  I do hope viva gives a good explanation for this?.

Hi all,
I?ve read the posts here and wanted to try and clarify something for you all.

Vivastreet contacting us a while ago to see how they can help us with funding and help us raise awareness. They are donating to NUM every month on behalf of sex workers advertising with them. As most of you know, NUM is a free service but it's one that is constantly facing the threat of closure due to lack of funding. It will always be a free service for sex workers but for a while we've been trying to encourage those sex workers that can afford to make small contributions as well as organisations and advertising sites to help us out. Just a few have.

This is an essential lifeline for us as a charity to continue to exist but to also meet the increasing demand. Every text alert we send out costs us money.

Possibly the email should have said ?donation? rather than ?fee? but semantics aside, we are grateful that they are working with us to reach more sex workers and making donations on behalf of people advertising on their site. They have also fund raised silent auctions and blog posts and links to us. They have been working with us for over a year and the fact that they're making a contribution for every sex worker registered with them is a big step. I only wish that more escort advertising sites agreed to do the same with the money you pay them for adverts.

NUM has been extremely successful but to keep growing to meet the demands for our services and send the alerts we need to raise money and this is a huge help..

Oh the silent auction when does that actually finish? I sent off an email to  enter and received zero acknowledgement only a vacation reply, even though VS were actively posting on here.

Hi everybody, sorry for causing this confusion with the email. 

It should have said ?donation? and not ?fee?. Hands up, our fault. It totally shouldn?t have said that.

This will be corrected in the next version of the email. 

Just to respond to a couple of points here and hopefully address some of the questions;

We?re offering to make a donation for every single advertiser on the site. This is opt in. It will work like this:

We will send an email to current advertisers once a month, asking them to register for National Ugly Mugs. NUM get sent this list of people who are happy for us to cover their donations, this will be de-duped against the existing NUM list. No nefarious exchange of anyone?s personal data is happening. Honest!

We will be offering to pay a donation to NUM for every person that has a live ad on the site. Currently this is over 4,000 people. It is opt in, so if you do not want us to make a donation on your behalf, there is no obligation.

We?re just trying to work out a way to give NUM a regular, monthly ?lifeline? as Alex put it, to make sure they can keep up their essential work.  

Again, apologies for using the word ?fee? rather than ?donation? and the confusion this caused. This will not happen again. 

Thank you,

The Vivastreet Team - Finny

I see but still if vs are going to donate any way free of charge for escorts. Why do escorts need to opt in?. When we already have with UM. If I want to donate will. Thought so soon to do as a one off but nothing to boast about.  Vs get my money enough as it is. They want more from us.