That's easy - ad revenue.

If John Lester approached the big drug companies and asked them for sponsorship, then I bet BT would have plenty of revenue to pay at least one staff member.

Think about it - the ads would be the same size as the google ads that have been at the top of BT for years, but instead of various ads from google they would be ads for medications that are specific to the forum - pain meds at the chronic pain forum, epilepsy meds on the epilepsy forum, etc....

Google ads pay next to nothing - but if all of braintalk was sponsored by a drug company (or several drug companies) we wouldn't notice a difference because the ads would be the same size and in the same place, but the income generated would be larger than the few pennies we get from google ads, and the ads would be more tailored to each forum (no more "donate your used car" stupid ads that make no sense on a health support forum).

If BT was sponsored by a drug company, John would still maintain comtrol, the drug company would get a tax write off for their donation/sponsorship because BT has a non-profit orginization status, and the BT members would notice nothing diffferent (other than different ads in the place where the google ads now are).

My 2 cents.