When we talk to folks about making their visions for a nonprofit organization a reality, the most common thing that holds people back is funding. We wanted to share a success story from on of our favorite clients about how they are getting creative and making those crowdsourcing fundraising platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo really work for them and their organization. Give it a look and imagine what’s possible for your organization:
Kickstarter is an amazing tool for project specific fundraising. In 2010 Create Peace Project managed to raise $20,000 using this on-ine fundraising platform. Although $20K is a high goal, given Kickstarter is all or nothing, we did manage to generate that money with a bit of creative ingenuity. The first campaign for $20,000 reached $7,500 before I got a call from one couple saying that they were going to donate $12,600, to ensure that I reached my goal, however, part of that money was a corporate match and was unable to be registered into the Kickstarter campaign. So, I got that donation sent directly and ran a second campaign for $5,000 and asked all the donors to pledge their support in a one-week follow up campaign, and it worked. The $12,600 came independently and Create Peace Project harnessed another 6,500 from Kickstater.
Kickstarter, like Indiegogo.com use crowd sourced fundraising as a way to inspire people to pledge money to projects they believe in. It’s a risk free situation because no money is debited from an account unless the entirety of the goal is met. That way, donors can know that there money will be used to complete a project. Both of these fundraising platforms use incentives (ie gifts) for individuals or organizations to inspire folks to contribute to their campaign in exchange for a small gift of some kind. The only difference between the two is that Indiegogo will allow a project to get funding without an all-or-nothing restriction, for a higher service fee. This is not a bad deal, considering the platform is the key for social network, email and newsletter announcements.
Create Peace Project is currently working to raise $3775 to run a second printing of our arts-for-peace teachers resource; Let’s Create Peace. We have shared this 75 page full color booklet with educators across the US, have a team of 10 using it in schools in Hoima, Uganda, as well as having shared it with colleagues in Kathmandu Nepal.
We are hoping to raise about $5,000 from this kickstarter campaign. Anticipating the 8% loss to Kickstarter and Amazon, we are looking to push beyond our goal and ensure there is sufficient funds necessary to print, publicize, web-enable, and host tele-confrerences and distribute this amazing resource to teachers around the world in the year ahead.
Have a look at what they are up to at: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/createpeace/publishing-lets-create-peace-an-art-for-peace-curr