In September 2009, local photographer and Studio Two Creative Director, Kevin Sprague began a campaign to fund the production of “Imagining Shakespeare”- a comprehensive look at 15 years of his award-winning photography, design, and imaging work for Shakespeare & CO. On December 15, Kevin successfully completed his campaign, raising over $15,000, and he did it all with Kickstarter.
Kevin says “Kickstarter was a great tool to put this kind of project together and make it possible.” So what exactly is it? Kickstarter is a web-based ‘crowdfunding’ platform, launched in Spring of 2009, “for artists, writers, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, athletes, adventurers, inventors, bloggers, comic book creators, explorers, curators, promoters, performers, and lots of others.” Kickstarter is part of the growing community of crowdfunding websites, like artistshare.com, kickstart.org, and kiva.org, applying a fresh perspective and web 2.0 technology to age old funding scenarios. Kickstarter also seems to work best in conjunction with other web 2.0 promotion. “I found twitter and facebook great tools to both get my invitation and promote the project throughout the 90 day cycle” Kevin states, “that being said, it is a new service, and has a few bumps in the system, including an occasionally difficult-to-navigate pledging system.” Currently, creation of a project on Kickstarter is by invitation only, which Kevin indicates “are few and far between and available from people with current, active projects.” Still, Kickstarter may be the resource you are looking for, for your creative, innovative endeavors. Kevin says “It was a lot of work, but very heartening to see people from near and far come out to support my ideas.”
Click here to learn more about Kickstarter, how it works and how to request an invitation!
