Everything earned by or sent to 
The vote buying process is being optimized and monitored for cost. If we notice that bid to vote value is more than about 15% on average we will consider direct transfer as donation.
Right now we believe the extra attention to these projects is worth at least a promo cost of ~15%.
While we don't really keep track we may listen and give more weight to the opinions of what should be promoted from anyone who has donated/up-voted.
This week,
750 USD was spent to promote https://steemit.com/steem/@fredrikaa/steempress-now-available-in-the-wordpress-org-plugin-store-introducing-v1-0
500 USD was spent to promote https://steemit.com/1up/@utopian-1up/utopian-1up-a-sophisticated-curation-trail-for-utopian-io-version-1-0
