I want to briefly touch on two fundraising websites/programs because I’ll be writing a lot more about them soon (at least on Kickstarter).
Since I just mentioned Kickstarter, I’ll start there. We briefly talked about this in the last podcast, but just in case you missed it, Kickstarter is a site where you create a project, set your budget and set a deadline. You create different levels of funding, such as if someone gives $10 they get a CD for the album you’re trying to record or a digital copy of the movie you’re trying to make, or $2,500 gets them a producer credit. The difference with Kickstarter is people pledge the money, and the money is only withdrawn if you reach your goal. This lowers the risk on the funders’ part, so if you don’t reach the amount you need to complete your project, then no one has to put their money in.
I have a few posts lined up on this for a project I’m about to post, such as the most common donation levels and which levels people are most likely to give to, along with a list of things you can offer to funders.
But in the meantime there’s a good article on Documentary.org called The Kickstarter Effect: Fundraising as Game Theory. It’s a good writeup on how the filmmakers of Battle of Brooklyn raised $25,000 in 30 days for their film.
Another good article is on Ted Hope’s blog from Miao Wang On The Secrets of Her Kickstarter Success, where she describes how she raised $10,000 in 30 days to send Beijing Taxi to SXSW. However my two points of contention with this article are a) she didn’t see the donations pouring in until she mentioned the film was premiering at SXSW, and b) half that amount came from one guy. “The biggest pledge for our campaign actually came from someone who just stumbled upon the project while browsing Kickstarter…He decided he liked the project and went ahead with a pledge at the $5000 level!”
Like I said, I’m about to post a project on it for Bots High so I’ll see how it goes.
Website 2 is Flattr. It aims to allow content creators to make some money on their content (semi ironically Flattr is from the creator of The Pirate Bay). So the way I understand it, you sign up with Flattr and have it deduct a certain amount every month, say $30. You go online like you normally do, and if you read an article you really like, or see a movie or photo that jives with you, you click a Flattr button (I’m assuming something similar to ‘Digg This’ or ‘Tweet Me’) and that person gets a piece of your pie.
Then, depending on how many Flattrers(?) you give in the month, that number is divided by your $30 and sent to all those content creators. So if you liked 30 things, each creator gets a dollar. If you liked 1, then that person gets all $30. Check out the video below for a visual explanation.
The idea is if many people contribute, it can make a sizable sum for content creators, and maybe give something back to them.
Either way I’m curious to see how it pans out. However, for now we’ll have to wait until it gets out of private beta.
