Actually back when it was first talked about, Fencer liked the idea - like creating a new game on the site - the "Brain Game".

But other things could help Fencer out for example now he was a store that sells items, bonus brains for items bought. bonus brains for extending your own membership maybe. bonus brains for donations. So lets say you want someone on the list but don't have enough brains to buy it - maybe a donation of every dollar gets you 10 extra brains - which would in turn get Fencer extra $$ in return for brains - which in almost all cases does not really buy anything that will hurt Fencer or his goal to make this site self relient when it comes to $$ income.

Also another things that Fencer would gain is pawns would be watching some of the cool things paid members could do like post in different colors, etc... which I believe would get some more pawns to buy memberships. The more "fun" you can bring to the site, the more people you will get to support the site.