Scotty, anytime you need some funds to keep a server/ice going, I hope you call it out and ask. I know I would gladly open my wallet and I'll bet many others would as well.
There are many variables for the costs of a site like this, depending in if you buy or lease the hosting SW licenses, SW management, and the size of the forum. The larger the forum gets, the more money it costs to manage it. The SW tools, servers and data storage are the main costs. If you pay someone to do site management the costs go up as well. Also legal fees can be an issue, especially with defamation cases, even of they are superficial. The total costs can vary from as little as $200 a year to $10,000. One vBulletin site with a dedicated server with 1.5 million posts, 23k members and 600-800 constant online users runs $220 a month. If the goal here is to become a huge site, then the overhead is going to be large. That is the bane of the other large for profit sites though; they want more users to make more advertising dollars so they make more money. It becomes a cancer with growth as the only goal. They also get huge and become harder to manage as they attract hackers, politically motivated one time posters, and spam. If the site wants to stay efficient and cheap, then more members is not the goal, and hence the costs are greatly reduced. I am a member of many forums that have no advertising, and are paid for by the owner, membership dues or by donations. They are smaller sites, and remain that way.
I also have another business I run during the summer, since stove sales takes a nose drive when it is warm out. I am more than happy to post pictures of my products. Some of you perve on my site and FB page. Eric
IF there are site sponsors please make sure that it is clear to the casual user that they are selling something -- on some sites dealers like to post undercover with an obvious bias to their product. The average user doesn't always know they are reading a sales pitch.