“Aiming at us cuz they know we let our minds go stagnant, red dots on our faces from being non-proactive!” DAMN!!

Learn somethin, pass it on….

The Future Will Be Donated

How IndieGoGo and Kickstarter have democratized fundraising

By Emilia Barrosse, John Blahnik and Kimberly Lightbody

Six years ago, Slava Rubin tried to start a charity to raise money for cancer research. As a child Rubin lost his father to cancer, and he wanted to help fight the disease in his father’s memory. But he eventually ran up against the same problem that many in his shoes face: finding the funds.

“[My friends and I] had a shared experience of frustration at the difficulties of trying to raise money—we decided there had to be a better way,” Rubin says. “So we decided to create something.”

In January 2008, Rubin, along with his friends and co-founders Eric Schell and Danae Ringelmann, launched a website they called IndieGoGo. Today, the site is used in over 200 countries and is the largest open funding platform in the world.

IndieGoGo gives people in need of funding for their creative projects a platform by which they can raise money and see their dreams come to fruition. Candidates put their projects up on the site for browsers to check out and, if interested, fund out of their own pockets.

“The whole idea is to help democratize fundraising so that anybody in the world can raise money for anything,” says Rubin.

And IndieGoGo isn’t alone. In April 2009, a site called Kickstarter was created by three visionaries who were inspired by a similar obstacle. In 2002, future Kickstarter founder Perry Chen wanted to put on a concert in his hometown of New Orleans but didn’t have the funds. That problem sparked an idea: If he had some way of knowing ahead of time how many people were interested in the concert, he’d have an idea whether it would be a success and would be better able to gauge the financial risk. The idea stayed in the back of his head until years later he told his friend Yancey Strickler. Strickler was interested and the two teamed up with another friend, Charles Adler, to launch the crowdfunding site four years later.

Since their inceptions, IndieGoGo has helped fund over 30,000 campaigns and Kickstarter has raised $70 million, revolutionizing fundraising in the process. While the two sites have the same basic mission, they differ in the way they allocate the funds raised. Kickstarter’s model stipulates that if the project leader doesn’t reach his goal he receives none of the cash committed by funders online, whereas IndieGoGo allows the project leaders to keep whatever funds are raised— but the site takes only 4 percent of the funds from successful projects as its revenue and 9 percent from failed ones. Kickstarter takes 5 percent of all funds raised.

Kickstarter backs its all-or-nothing policy as a means for keeping their users honest.

“If you’re saying you get that money no matter what, is that person still obligated to complete their project?” Strickler asks. “It’s really unclear and, in fact, the answer is that they’re not obligated to complete the project. I have to feel like that is going to create bad situations for both the creators and the backers.”

But Rubin says IndieGoGo sees the issue in a different light. “We originally used the all-or-nothing model when we started in ’08,” Rubin says. “What we’ve learned is that a lot of the funders, as well as the campaign owners, want to know that, no matter what, they’ll be able to get their money. There’s still a lot of incentive to donate.”

These sites promote the notion that any passionate person with an idea can give his dream a life of its own simply by putting it online. But projects can only achieve success if people choose them from the thousands up on the sites at any given time, which is why most projects advertise special bonus gifts for funders, depending on how much they donate.

“There’s a warm glow you get from backing one of these projects,” Strickler says. “You’re contributing to [someone's work] in a material way to make it come to life and make it exist in the world—I think that it’s surprisingly intimate. I think ultimately that kind of romance is what’s most important of all.”

As people accomplish their goals with the help of the sites, news of their success spreads by word of mouth. Strickler says that’s how Kickstarter gets most of its users.

“We don’t have a marketing team,” says Strickler. “We’re not out trying to get people to use Kickstarter—people find out about us from their friends. Every time one of them uses the site, it’s a strong endorsement to the rest of the world that it could work for them.”

Both Strickler and Rubin agree that their respective sites have changed the way they feel about the fundraising process and the ability of one person to really make things happen.

“We get to be a part of this greater community of people who are doing things—people who aren’t typical, who just want to say ‘Yes’ and want to make things happen,” says Strickler. “I came here a much more cynical person than I am now, but when you spend a week looking at people and the things they put their effort and energy into, how can you not have a deep respect for it?”

Hip-Hop Needs a Mike Check!

Website used: IndieGoGo

Mike Check had no idea what IndieGoGo was—even when his very own music project was featured on the site’s homepage.

Check, 26, has been rapping since he was a freshman in high school and has been working hard on his burgeoning career ever since. For the past six months he’s been trying to record his latest album, Stars, Dreams and Elbow Grease, with funds from his own pocket. Inspired by his efforts, his friends decided to jump in.

Members of Check’s music team and friends created a profile for the project on IndieGoGo, asking the site’s community to help him record and promote his album. They filmed their efforts and made a video of the whole experience, which they showed Check at a surprise meeting.

“I guess they thought that I was struggling and so they took it upon themselves to help me out,” says Check. “I felt humbled…like I had the greatest teammates in the world.”

Upon watching the video, Check scoured the IndieGoGo site, looking at other projects and checking his own for updates.

“I think it’s an amazing site,” he says. “I can only speak from a musician’s point of view for this fact. A lot of major labels aren’t handing out a lot of records or advance money nowadays, so to get your independent career started and to come up with funds can be a little tough sometimes. I think it’s amazing that you can ask for a little support from your friends and family and get it.”

The perks that came along with donating to Check’s campaign ranged from a signed copy of his latest album to a personal Mike Check-guided tour of his tour bus at any show location. A donation of $10 earned you a free download of the album a week prior to its release.

“[My music] sounds somewhere in the mix between J. Cole and Drake,” Check says. “My message is basically, ‘Shoot for the stars, follow your dreams, put a lot of hard work into it and good things will come.’”