Preservation · Yumefumi
A commitment, stated plainly.
Yumefumi commits 2% of gross revenue to visual novel preservation. This commitment stands regardless of profitability.
- What counts as gross revenue
- All subscription revenue (Pro, Patron, founding-rate tiers), any future publisher sponsorships, any other commercial income the site ever receives.
- Where the funds go
- Preservation of the VN medium broadly. VNDB is the primary intended beneficiary once its post-Yorhel governance stabilizes; until then, VNDB-designated funds are held in escrow. Other efforts may be funded per quarter.
- How the commitment is verified
- Quarterly ledger published below. Dollars in, dollars out, whom they went to, and a short rationale for each recipient.
- Who oversees allocation
- Yumefumi stewardship proposes. Founding curators cast an advisory vote on recipients (non-binding but material). Results published with rationale.
Why this is the way we’ve set it up.
What's in scope
The program funds projects that support the visual novel medium. Recipients in scope today:
- VNDB: the catalog authority Yumefumi is built on. Funds held in escrow for now (see below).
- Fuwanovel: the long-running English-language community forum for VN reading and translation discussion.
- Lemma Soft Forums: the Ren'Py engine and creator community, foundational to the indie and doujin tier of the medium.
Listing an organization here means it's eligible. The quarterly ledger says what each recipient actually got and why.
How it's structured
We commit a percentage of gross revenue rather than of profits. From profits, the commitment only kicks in once we're profitable; from gross, it's funded even if Yumefumi never makes money.
VNDB funds are held in escrow for now. After the death of VNDB's founder, the project is in a governance transition. We hold VNDB-designated funds in escrow until there's someone authorized to receive them. The balance is published on this page and in every ledger.
Why we don't publish per-recipient amounts up front. Listing organizations up front tells readers who the program is for. Listing fixed amounts per recipient up front would create expectations we may not be able to meet, and would force a public ranking between groups doing complementary work. The ledger is where the actual numbers go.
VNDB
The catalog data on every page here (titles, dates, developers, tags, covers) comes from VNDB, under the Open Database License, built by volunteers over twenty years. Yumefumi wouldn't exist without it. We send revenue upstream because we depend on the work and because not contributing back to twenty years of volunteer effort wouldn't sit right.
The ledger.
Ledgers publish quarterly. The first one comes after the first revenue quarter and lists: period dates, total revenue, the 2% allocation, recipients and why each, VNDB escrow change, any rollovers.
- VNDB escrow balance
- Not yet accrued. First disbursement pending the first revenue quarter.
- Next ledger publication
- after the first revenue quarter
Questions about the preservation commitment can go to preservation@yumefumi.com. Commentary welcome.