Crowdfunding Platforms

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Random Crowdfunding links

Crowdfunding ---

Resource: Thepyre.org/wiki/Funding

Niels: I'm very frustrated with funding streams coming through nation-states.

Kickstarter -must be UK or USA -it you don't have a shiny, sexy project (e.g. a more technical, but important project, for instance) it might not get funded

So the idea was to come up with a crowdfunding platform that was dedicated to data liberation -we put together user stories that translated into functionalities and found a few options: -Self Starter -Freedom Host -Goteo

Now we're trying to figure out who would use these. What does it look like if people can't offer money, but can offer time or advice, etc.

We're also further developing Goteo including more features

Peggy: do we need more tools? Is that the problem? the tool seems to be 10% of the battle. The real hurdle is the communication piece and getting people involved.

Tomas: There are stable platforms for certain use-cases but one thing that's missing is people investing money around causes which can act as a gateway to carrying on with a cause

Paul: The gap in the tools is campaign management while doing fundraising. There are many tools to raise money and there are many tool to manage campaigns but there aren't tools that combine those two into an easily accessible use-cases.

Tomas: An interesting example is Kiva where people support not one project but join and support to support period rather than a single project. What does it look like to move crowdfunding's focal point to supporting social good in general.

Arthur: Regardless of where the project is located (e.g. kickstarter, indiegogo), the story has to be compelling enough to get attention

Paul: another issue is that there isn't a good way to "thank" those who contribute to these projects

Tomas: from a European perspective, you're often getting money from nations or large foundations. But in this crowdfunding model, you have to tell your story to constituencies.

Jenny: we did a small crowdfunding campaign with a small goal of $2000 on WePay. We had a campaign site and it was super simple. We ended up making about $4,000. We posted it to Reddit threads and had some success with social media exposure. -people could see that they were substantial

WePay is a paypal-like tool Crowdrise -easy to set-up

Peggy: a big problem that we have is to find a platform that makes international exchanges easily (language, currency)

Niels: we spend so much time and energy on these campaigns that don't make too much money. We want to integrate an Open Integrity Index. A lot of tools claim a lot of things that people might not understand (e.g. confusing privacy and anonymity). So people could look at aspects of tools based on their interests but tools (listed on this platform) will also be audited about how they work with these issues.

Bountysource - a platform for funding open source software

Function-creep is always dangerous -this tool can do this and that and THIS and THAT and ... etc. etc.

Our platform will set a minimum amount that you want to raise but you can also set an optimal amount.

Peggy: one thing that we found is that the small iterational goals can get people into the cause.

What about perks? (e.g. getting a coffee mug if you put in X amount of money) -jess: I think it helps with the initial donation

Matt: I like the perks. I think they motivate me to donate more. The decision to donate is already made but how MUCH I donate is influenced about the perks.

Charity(water) uses a type of gamification where donations are done in your name (e.g. donate to charity(water) for my birthday instead of giving me presents!) and have been very successful. Those who raise donations get a some type of "score".

It's the Ladder of Engagement (increasing interaction every rung of the ladder)

Tomas: There's a type of democratization that has happened to this model. There's a consensus to how people are telling these stories.

catarse.me - crowdfunding with internationalization support

Peggy: I think the bigger deal is trying to figure out the progress of a donor and shifting the ladder of engagement to keep engaged people engaged

Jess: What if you pool donors

Tomas: On Kiva, you can join a team who have likeminded theme and you see what other people in your team are donating to and this gamification piece motivates people to donate as well as just introduces them to new causes to donate to

flattr - you specify how much money a month you want to donate and then go around sites and click the Flattr button and then Flattr distributes your monthly budget based on how many sites you clicked

gittip - micropayments around technology projects. Like a tip jar

Crowdfunding Platforms

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