Using Kickstarter To Secure Funding For Your Creative Project
Header image credit: Going home (2) by Karin Elizabeth
Thinking of taking your creative project to the next level but not sure where you’re going to get the funding? In the old days your options may have been limited but now you can take your ideas directly to the masses with sites like Kickstarter.
Image credit: Kickstarter.com
Kickstarter is a funding platform for creative projects that has enabled hundreds of musicians, artists, designers, technologists, film makers, publishers and other creative people to get their projects off the ground. It’s premise is all or nothing funding. You submit your project idea and if accepted, you have up to 60 days to spread the word and appeal for support in the form of pledges. These pledges can range from a few dollars to sums in the thousands, meaning anyone can help make your idea a reality.
Image credit: Kickstarter.com
The system is designed to minimise the risk for everyone involved. If you don’t make your target, no money changes hands. This way, creators don’t have to struggle through on a below par budget, and the pledgers don’t see their money running off to the Bahamas. Unless of course the project has something to do with the Bahamas! To qualify, your project can be any size, but it must be creatively driven. The folks at Kickstarter also insist that project creators get to retain 100% creative control and ownership over their work, letting them test new concepts with minimal risk.
Image credit: Kickstarter.com
Some exciting projects have found their feet through Kickstarter funding. The developers of Diaspora, an open source personal web server, reached more than 20 times their funding goal. Other awesome Kickstarter projects have included Urbanized, a documentary from the makers of Helvetica, as well as an initial production run of JETSAM, a line of eco-friendly wallets made from vintage ties.
Image credit: Kickstarter.com
It’s easy to get excited about Kickstarter and similar crowd-sourced funding sites like Pozible, Crowdfunder and Sponsume as they enable creative people to present their concepts to an incredibly wide audience and they encourage the wider public to participate in the creative process.
Have you had any experience with Kickstarter or similar sites? We’d love to hear from people who have pledged to support projects on Kickstarter, or artists who have used the platform to gain support for their creative projects. What were the pros and cons of using a crowd-sourced funding platform? Do you have any advice for those who aren’t familiar with the process? We’d be keen to hear about your experiences so please feel free to join the discussion in the comments below.
