Comments on: 8 Things You Need to Know BEFORE You Start Crowdfunding https://kpalana.com/2015/10/8-things-you-need-to-know-before-you-start-crowdfunding/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=8-things-you-need-to-know-before-you-start-crowdfunding Art, Design & Education for Unapologetic Idealists Mon, 12 Aug 2024 15:29:15 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: kpalana https://kpalana.com/2015/10/8-things-you-need-to-know-before-you-start-crowdfunding/#comment-38371 Sat, 07 Nov 2015 07:37:53 +0000 https://kpalana.com/?p=2171#comment-38371 Hi Bruce,

Thanks so much for your great questions.
I’ll try to briefly answer them here but if you’d like, you can send me a message on my contact page and we could do a mini Skype session next week which might be easier for both of us.

Regarding projects on Aura’s House. 99% of the projects listed had donation buttons directly integrated with Children International’s site so the donations went directly to them. There are a few projects for recipients outside of CI’s program (Emergency projects in Tanzania, Ghana, and Nigeria for example) where we used a Paypal account instead. I usually tried to partner with a small nonprofit for these projects so they could deal with the money, but in two cases there wasn’t enough time to set this up so personal Paypal accounts came into play. I always hate doing this, so I try to post paid tuition bills, and other updates ASAP to be as accountable and transparent to the donors as possible.

For Tania, I would consider setting up her project as soon as you feel comfortable. If you are feeling especially ambitious, the holiday season is a GREAT time for fundraising, especially December. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t have a major yet. Just going to University is a big deal so I would build the project around that, her goals, her parents’ money situation, etc. You can call it an Education Project. Your goal is not so high. I would do one project per semester or academic year (2 semesters) so your goal will not be too high.

In fact, I need to do a project for Aura’s Last few semesters of University and need to set that up soon. I was thinking of using Indiegogo this time with a mirror page at Aura’s House (archived, but opened up just for this special project) in a few weeks. I could do it like I did it in the past with the button having donations go right to CI, but one issue which always bugged me is that I never had real time donation information to update the site with like Indiegogo and the others have. I think this helps keep momentum going.

Anyway, food for thought. I hope this helps!
Best,
Kristen

]]> By: Bruce Hawksworth https://kpalana.com/2015/10/8-things-you-need-to-know-before-you-start-crowdfunding/#comment-38370 Fri, 06 Nov 2015 19:51:20 +0000 https://kpalana.com/?p=2171#comment-38370 Kristen,
Your very valuable Bonus Resource ebook: “Crowfunding Confidential” answered a lot of questions- thank you; but I have a few more:
1. Aura’s House url lists projects with a “Make A Donation” button that connects to a fundraiser platform like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, etc. Since some of these projects are for Children International (CI) sponsored children, does the fundraiser platform, at the campaigns end, send the money to CI’s Project department for distribution and tax accounting?
2. Links. It seems the web page links are between: a dedicated recipient WordPress (WP) blog, the fundraiser platforms, and the social media sites. Do you create bi-directional links between short-messaged social media sites like Twitter and the WP blog to elucidate the campaign better?
3. Our Ecuadorian CI sponsored child, Tania, graduates from high school in summer 2016 and plans to attend a public university in September 2016. Tania would like to study System Engineering, but she won’t know the results of the March 2016 government exam until May 2016. You said the summer months are not a good time to campaign, so since she would like to attend college regardless of the exam outcome, would the pre-summer months be a more likely time?
4. Shouldn’t the blogs, social media, and fundraiser platforms include a specific declared major so donors can better visualize her in that profession?
5. Ecuadorian public universities don’t charge tuition, but books and supplies, transportation and food will cost $750/ semester. Tania’s parents only make $400/mo, so setting money aside would be a hardship. Can the words “educational assistance” replace “tuition assistance”?
Thanks, Bruce

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