July 6, 2011

Crowdsourced FundraisingCrossLink

Agenda

• Definition

• Landscape

• Case Studies

• Best practices

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What is ‘Crowd-Funding’ ?

Attracting resources for creativity, causes, and businesses via the web

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Landscape

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Kickstarter: Funding Creativity

• The largest funding platform for creative projects

• A new form of commerce & patronage

• Project creators keep 100% ownership and control over their work.

• Projects offer unique benefits to backers

• All or nothing funding

• Projects must be fully-funded or no money changes hands

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ProFounder: Equity-based fundraising tools

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• At launch, ProFounder allowed entrepreneurs to share a percentage of their revenues with investors (friends, family, community) over time in exchange for an investment.

• ProFounder gives businesses a page where they can invite investors to a destination page that allows users to make contributions

• Most recently, ProFounder is launching another option for fundraising-an equity term sheet.

CrowdRise: Everyday Philanthropists

• A personal foundation platform that allows users to raise money and organize volunteer efforts

• Each Crowdrise template gives everyday philanthropists a hub to showcase their charity, do social media outreach, display photos, and update contributors on the project’s progress.

• Will Ferrell is raising money for cancer. If you donate you get a bottle of suntan lotion with his naked body printed on it

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JustGiving: Technology for charity

• Enables charities to harness the financial backing of a huge number of sponsors

• Unlike Kickstarter, JustGiving charges charities £15 month plus a 5% commission

• Fundraisers are given access to a wide range of multi-media tools where they can set up (and later customise) a fundraising donation webpage in just 60 seconds. 

• iPhone app also available for on-the-go management

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Case Studies

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TikTok’s iPod Nano Watch

• Transforms the iPod Nano into the world’s coolest multi-touch watch

• Raised close to $1 million on Kickstarter, grabbing the spot for most money raised on the fund crowdsourcing site to date.

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The Glif – iPhone Tripod

• Dan Provost and Tom Gerhardt are two friends that decided to make a little contraption that could put your iPhone in a tripod. They wanted $10,000. They got $137,417.

• The product involves 3d printing, which requires an expensive machine

• They asked people to pre-order the product as a way to fund it

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Kickstarter Film Festival will debut 90 minutes of a dozen film projects

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When: Friday July 9th

Where: Old American Can Factory in Brooklyn

Additional Kickstarter participants will be selling things like artisanal sodas, handmade ice cream, pies, vegetables, delicious cakes

LUMI Mask

• LUMI is a sleep mask that simulates sunrise, combining two existing products- sleep masks and sunrise clocks.

• In the morning a light unit inside the LUMI simulates a sunrise 30 minutes before you wake.

• LUMI will be compatible with the iPhone and other mobile devices through a receiver that will allow you to set your wake up time from your mobile device.

• Raised $10,000

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Best practices

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Best Practices – Building a relationship between backers and the project

• Communicate the mission of the project and the team

• Important to have a personal story.  Strong beginning, middle, and then possible end (if your project is funded).

• Beginning might be the description and video; Middle / end might be a blog…

• Collaborate!  Find someone with a video camera.  Take photos all along the way to document the process.

• Building a unique project economy via incentives

• Find incentives that are cheap to produce but valuable and unique to your project.

• Photo Prints, DVDs, CD’s, Digital Downloads, Letters of Thanks, Producer Credits, Send out e-mails and ask people to share.

• Events build more excitement and create a close connection between the project and potential backers

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Thank you!

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UP NEXT:

• OLLIE / ‘El Arpa’ documentary

• MIKE & RAJ / #CrowdGallery

• Panel discussion / Q&A

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