That's still not the whole problem. I help run another forum and one guy funds it, and I help fund other aspects of what we do, along with donations (that I had to implement a PC hardware giveaway with it just to get people to donate, and that's still busting).
We're a relatively small group of people that defected from a very large forum that eventually shut down after our exodus, and we've been running for over a year now with very little new membership. Our
SEO is fine, but it's not good enough. We are VERY relaxed with our rules, and practically anything legal is not removed. We also have total control of every aspect of the forum, and are currently building a home-page/portal, just to put into perspective how much control we have.
Still, it gets stale, and all our efforts to keep it lively really only affect the people that are already there.
Your biggest challenge is going to be getting new membership on a frequent basis. And there can only be so much word of mouth before that ceases to be feasible. That's very hit-or-miss to begin with.
I think your goal is admirable, however your execution of it is going to be missing the mark. You would be providing the same exact thing as we have here, but with bells and whistles, at the expense of a big driver of success, which is new membership. If you're not offering something significantly better that people can't live without, then you're competing in a failing battle against places that don't even need the bells and whistles to succeed, like this place.
Sure, you can eventually outshine this place if you have a great membership, good marketing, great
SEO, and relevance... but if you think getting (and let's be realistic by saying SOME) people here on board with the idea is the problem, you have not thought this out, and this should be a cause for concern with anyone electing to devote the sort of time and energy to a venture that, in all likelihood, would fail without the kind of foresight that needs to go into this sort of thing.
I think you need to have a well-drawn, effective plan before you recruit people to support it. Not the other way around.