I haven’t been listening, so I haven’t been donating, but… yeah, I need to think about that.
I really need to set up a podcast catcher – I don’t use an i-thing so I haven’t been highly motivated to do so, but there are some shows I’d really like to start following, or resume following but can’t get over the air in my area.
Re being written into a story: Tuckerizing (which is what that practice is called, I believe after a fan named Tucker) often goes for fairly substantial sums of cash when auctioned off at SF conventions… but that’s generally for a role (usually an expiring role) in a novel rather than a short story.