Isn't the most important thing for a new server to grow its community?
Every time the server go down for whatever reason, more and more people lose their passion and eventually give up on waiting and leave. You see now, even a server that is so broken have a decent amount of people playing. Because people really have just one to choose from. And they rarely put down the server for so many days and hope people to come back and like the new update after all the waiting. But the fact is that some people might just leave and never come back again.
The main factor to maintain or grow a healthy and strong community is to have them really enjoy what you made. Well, you made us waited for so long. That's never going to help your community to grow.
By growing your community, you will eventually get supporters and donation money. Think about it.