Please note that your donation is completely separate to any content you might wish to download and pay for or product you might wish to buy and there is no connection between your donation and the payments you make for that content or those products. All donations are given entirely out of your own generosity.

Thank you so much for clicking on that donate button and considering helping me continue to provide what I hope is the best guitar instruction available anywhere, free for those that can't afford it!

Note about security
I have moved to using the super secure Stripe payment gateway, no card details are stored on my site and SSL security encryption is used when you submit the details on the form (see the green padlock and "Secure" in the top of your browser and the https address which mean your link with the server is secure). But if you prefer to use PayPal please click this link (one-off payments only) PayPal.me JustinGuitar Donation.

Why should you donate?

There are lots of reasons that you might want to contribute... it's obviously taken me a lot of work, thousands of hours, over more than 15 years to get this far and creating new content for the site is now my full-time job.

• This new website has cost tens of thousands of pounds to develop and I'm really hoping that people will dig it and help me make it everything I want it to be - I have some incredible ideas but fancy coding and great developers are expensive!
• I'm finally learning to delegate but building a team is also expensive. A good team means I can focus on what I'm good at - making great lessons for you!
• At the moment I still need to rely on product sales and in my ideal world, enough people would donate so that I can keep everything free!

The site is used by over 35,000 unique visitors a day and the videos hosted on YouTube have had well over 350 million views. That is a whole lot of guitar lessons. And they help thousands of people all over the world learn to play, which is incredibly rewarding in itself.

When this site started to take off I was really encouraged by the emails I was getting from all over the globe from people that could not afford proper lessons who were loving the website. I also believe that good things travel and that maybe the good will that I offer here will spread and people will "pay it forward" and I can make a small contribution to the greater good, help make this planet a little better to live on for all of us... It became my aim to keep as much free on this website as was possible, and it's going pretty well, so far, but it does need financial support to survive.

So I run it on an honour system.  It is the only way that I can help people that can't afford lessons, people without credit cards - which in my estimates are about 1/4 of users, people on income support or the disabled. So if I started charging I would not be able to help the people I want to help, and that sucks.

If you can afford to donate then you should not consider the site free!

Unfortunately, at the moment less than 0.1% of users make a donation. I'm pretty sure that at least 50% of users would be able to donate the cost of a book or a private lesson once a year at least - and this site gives you a WHOLE lot more than that. You can try it all out for free as long as you like... and then donate and help me make more cool lessons! If you have enjoyed the site then I would really appreciate a contribution - don't leave it for everyone else... Those of you with a good job and few guitars should really put your hand in your virtual pocket ;)

How Much, How Often?

Lots of people write in and ask how much should they pay or what is the average amount? Well, I have more content than almost all other guitar pay sites and they range from about $20 to $35 per month...

Monthly donations are special because they show me that people believe in what I will do and not just what I've done! Of course, one-off payments are appreciated just as much!

I see every donation that comes through I used to reply to each one personally, I feel like my time would be better spent making new lessons and developing the site, so I hope you will understand - if you really want a reply, then I'll be happy to of course :) please email me (justin[at]justinguitar.com) and let me know you have donated and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

My thanks in advance :) I deeply appreciate that y'all support me in this adventure to help people learn to play :)

Cancelling Reguar Donations Is Easy!

While I hope you won't want to, cancelling a regular donation is very easy! Once you set up a regular donation you can cancel it in the donations tab of your dashboard in a couple of clicks. It's a lot simpler than cancelling on paypal which is one of the reasons I think the Stripe system is better. By the way, it's the same if you purchase the Practical Music Theory access too - easily cancelled from your dashboard when you log in.

PayPal

I have now switched to a different payment system but if you prefer PayPal the email address for the account is: donation at justinguitar dot com - if you go to your PayPal account and send money to that address it will come to me! Or use this PayPal.me link :)

Donate by Cash / Cheque / Check

Cash is super easy, just wrap it in a bit of paper inside the envelope for security. My postbox is secure so for small donations it works.

Please be aware that the bank fees for me to pay in cheques from anything but GBP are crazy - between £12 and £20 per cheque, so if you send in $25 USD by cheque it might only come in as a couple of dollars by the time it's in my bank! So if you're sending in less than $100US, please just post cash, or use bank transfer (I use transferwise and it's awesome for overseas payments).

I had a couple of cheques bounce recently, which is embarrassing all round... I'm not going to get cross about it of course, but I have to pay all the bank charges, so if you do send a cheque, please make sure you have sufficient money in your cheque account! Note that it sometimes takes me a month or two to make it to the bank with cheques.

Please make cheque's payable to Justin Guitar Ltd (not to me personally).

JustinGuitar
PO Box 695
FARNHAM
GU9 1NB
UK

Donate by direct bank transfer

Direct bank transfer is popular these days, saves tree's, money and time. You can usually send a message too in the notes but please email me and let me know too (subject: DONATION) because bank paperwork is something I generally try to avoid ;)

If you want to make a bank transfer from overseas, check out TransferWise, I've used it myself for years and the fees are tiny compared with traditional banks!

Account Name: Justin Guitar Ltd
BIC: HBUKGB4B
IBAN: GB08HBUK40021331758225

For those in the UK: Sort code 400213 account 31758225

Amazon Associates

If you're a regular Amazon shopper you can make regular donations without even noticing by using my Amazon Associates links below when you shop (for anything at all!)! They'll give me a very small slice, but the small slices can add up if enough people use them! :)

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Amazon Wishlist

I also have an Amazon wishlist thingy so you can buy me things I want/need through Amazon! Please email me and tell me though so I can email you back and say thanks. There are some odd things on there too - cos my family use it for Xmas prezzies and stuff ;) so you don't have to buy me pots and pans or a vacuum, lol...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/registry/wishlist/288E8IV8INCQF

Please email me and let me know - so I can thank you!

Spread The Word

The more visits I get the more I can charge for the few ads I put up - more time I get to do lessons. Easy. It also means more people will benefit from the site. :) Spreading the word can take lots of forms:

1. Tell your friends.
2. Tell your local music store - ask them to tell others too...
3. Tell your guitar teacher (if you still have one...) and ask them to help too.
4. Tell your school teachers (there are lots of schools all over that use this site)

Publicity

The best way to reach lots of people is through the media. Know someone in radio, your local paper, or a tv station? Then mention to them that there is a guy giving free lessons on the web - really free, no subscriptions and no pushing JustinGuitar products down your throats :)

Send some emails to people at TV and radio stations and ask that they check out the site - there ain't much free in the world these days - does make an interesting story...

And musical charities and foundations that you know of - drop them an email and tell them about the site, so they may promote it to people too!

Link To justinguitar.com

Got your own website? Adding a link to this site helps in many ways. Link to your favourite page or just to the home page. You don't need to ask my permission or anything - just link away!

Use The Internet

Tell people on other guitar forums about this site - but do not slag off other sites, that is not cool. Just let people know that they don't have to pay to get quality lessons. Keep it real - hang out a bit - you might even meet some cool new people too and learn some stuff :) They might well delete your post pretty soon, but worth a try - don't be rude and don't be too persistent - it might give our community a bad name...

Just be honest - if you like what I do here - let people know :)

You might try making www.justinguitar.com part of your "signature" by typing it under your name at the end of your posts - rather than just blatant promotion.

 

Thanks again - take care and I wish you many years of guitar fun!

J.