What are the best ad programs to have? I would like to pull in around 40-50 a month with the ads. I am guessing Google AdSense?

I make zero. I don't run ads, I did try asking for donations but that did not bring in much of anything. I get about 150 uniques a day. Average 1000 posts per day.

I do have a web-site to go with the forum www.edtoons.com that I have Google Adsense on, but I only just started that.

BTW how do you make money running a forum, It seems almost impossible.

My Site is at http://www.edtoonsboard.com

Ads is the main source I would say. And then have a membership fee of a few bucks, and offer them something, along with removing of ads. As long as your forum has something to offer, so they will stay around, they will purchase that membership.

HabboDiscussion.com

Earns approx $60/monthly from google.

Earns approx $50/monthly from text ads

man what is wrong with my forum... 14K+ members, tons of traffic, been around for 7 years. i make nothing. i get $100 check from adsense about every 4 months. im losing money every month for YEARS. after reading this, heh, im even more depressed.
http://www.sacpaintball.com

Well the problem lies with most of your members arent active. If they arent active, your adsense isn't getting used much. You have less than 800 active, and I am not sure what you have the counted as active set for... Also the most users ever online was 121, So on average you get what... maybe 50 members on in a day? That is the only problem... you are a big site, but you don't have enough active members. Send out an e-mail to your inactive members and hopefully they will come back. I am sure you can get around 1k a month if most of those 14k were active.

I am just now starting to tinker with adsense and integrating it into my website. My forum is just featured around my local community. I started in august of '06 and at this time I have 483 members 250 or so that are active. I receive anywhere from 650 - 900 visitors a day with roughly 2500 uniques a month. Am I wasting my time with adsense or is the potential there?

Our forums are not "big boards" but earning around $550-$700 per month from two forums using google adsense.

Just switched the ads around on one of the forums see if that changes anything. :D

One board, around 50,000 impressions and 100 clicks per week, around $500 a month from adsense alone.

After paying for my expensive ded. server, I profit around $1k a month from adsense and vibrantmedia...my adsense hasn't been doing too good lately though :(