hi: thanks everyone for pointing me to the contribution page.. [a] it was not obvious to me how to find this page. if you like contributions, please make it a bit more obvious. I would think a button on the home page would be a good idea. [b] any kind of trinket sale (a CD?) for money would be useful for research budget based donations. now I will try to find out if my research budget allows me to send donations. (how about buying some air for $100?) grrrr... [c] for individuals, a paypal button to donate $x would be a very good idea. [d] VISA works well internationally---but non-US check based items do not for our accounting. especially if the R-project does not have a US bank account, paypal would be useful. Andy: yes, the paypal-like scam is another phishing one. the same applies to most other orgs these days (ebay, amazon, etc.) regards, /ivo