Kickstarter is a four month old “online community designed to help artists, musicians, athletes, inventors, and filmmakers raise small sums of money from a large number of patrons to help them fund their projects.” What some are calling, “crowdfunding.”
Kickstarter CTO, Andy Baio describes the format as follows “a project creator sets a fundraising goal, deadline, and an optional set of rewards for backers. If the goal’s reached by the deadline, then everyone’s charged via Amazon Payments and the backers get their goodies. If the goal’s not reached, nobody’s charged. It’s all or nothing.” Baio also writes on Waxy.org, “Since our launch ten weeks ago, over $250,000 has been pledged to make everything from books, magazines, albums (and album reissues), plays, films, art projects, zombie iPhone apps, and more.” Kickstarter also offers “publishing tools, where creators can post project updates with audio and video, either publicly or for backers only.”
Baio,who proposed at the Guardian Activate Summit in London that “the power of play and applying game mechanics to non-games — difficult problems like environmental change, political activism, and fundraising” states that the format of “Kickstarter turns fundraising into a social game, where people have to work together within a time limit to reach a common goal. Already, we’re seeing that projects develop their own viral momentum… Once a project hits 25% of its goal, success is almost guaranteed.”
At this point anyone may back a project, but in order to create your own, you need an invite. Click here to learn how to get an invite!
Click here visit kickstarter.com or read more about Kickstarter at inc.com, waxy.org, and nytimes.com*!
*Please note that the New York Times article states that Kickstarter pledges are not tax deductible. Some pledges are tax deductible: if the project creator is a 501c3 that is registered as such with Amazon Payments, pledges would be deductible. It’s up to each eligible project to handle.Do you have an item you would like to share about the creative economy? Suggest a Post to Berkshire Creative!
