(This is a guest post from my friend Taylor Gahm. He has worked on and studied thousands of crowdfunding campaigns. Most fail, here’s a few thoughts on why yours might not.)
Crowdfunding is a great way to raise funds for your next project, idea, start up, charity, or cause. But despite what many think, crowdfunding is not found money.
I can’t tell you how many of my clients think millions of people wake up everyday and comb through IndieGoGo or Kickstarter looking for campaigns they can donate to while sipping their morning coffee.
Or how many of my clients think their crowdfunding campaign will magically go viral. For every campaign that goes viral there are countless campaigns that don’t raise a single dollar. The odds of your crowdfunding campaign going viral are about the same as your chances of winning the lottery. (If you have to choose, I say go for the lottery ticket. It’s easier than setting up a crowdfunding campaign and provides a comparable dose of false hope!)
Do complete strangers really make contributions to campaigns/campaigners they don’t personally know? Of course they do. But it’s almost always when a campaign is either raising funds for a shared interest, or a novel cause that invites others into a bigger story.
One of my favorite examples of a crowdfunding campaign that successfully invited others into a bigger story was for Karen Huff. After an internet video of this sweet, 68 year-old bus monitor getting verbally assaulted by middle school students went viral, a good Samaritan started an IndieGoGo campaign to raise $5,000 to send Karen on a vacation.
$703,168 and 32,251 individual donors later, Karen had received more than just a vacation!
Why did this campaign raise so much money? And why did people continue to give well beyond the $5,000 goal? Watch the original video and you’ll get an idea why. Over thirty thousand decent human beings felt the injustice of what happened to Karen and couldn’t help but to be a part of ‘righting’ such a terrible wrong. And as the amount snowballed beyond the original goal I imagine people felt an incredible satisfaction from participating in completely changing someone’s life beyond belief. What a story!
I think deep down we all want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. We want to know we fit into a bigger story.
If you are raising money or support, try inviting others into a bigger story. Nobody wants to help you raise $25,000 to fulfill your self-centered dream of moving to L.A. to get discovered, or to buy that new sports car you’ve always wanted.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to move to L.A. or buying a new car, but if you expect people to part with their hard earned cash you have to invite them into a much bigger story.
Are you moving to L.A. because you have six months to live? Do you need a new car because yours was totaled in a high speed chase as a result of you saving someones life? Put me down for twenty bucks because those are stories I want to be a part of!
For more on what it takes to run a successful crowdfunding campaign, you can download my free Crowdfunding Tips PDF here.
(@taylorgahm is a TEDx presenter, filmmaker, comedian, consultant and crowdfunding expert from Houston, TX. Visit www.TaylorGahm.com for more.)
Thanks Taylor, I was told that I need to look into this. Great timing!
Some of my thoughts:
1) Contribute to others. Some sites will actually show how many campaigns YOU’VE contributed to. You want me to fund something when you yourself haven’t funded anything? Not even $1?
2) If you don’t believe in your dream enough to put some skin in the game, should I? If you’re fundraising for a trip and the plane ticket is $1048, don’t ask for $1100 because, “Well, dinner at the airport is expensive”.
3) Try to offer some perk. Sure, if it’s a “feel good” campaign, this may not be necessary. If it’s for something tangible, try to offer something. Early access, a cheaper price for an early supporter, etc. Saying, “Oops! I’ll be too busy in Jamaica to do any perks if this goes through!” doesn’t fire up the crowd.
4) Make it clear you’re changing the perk. I contributed to one campaign and they changed the product so I got half the amount, and the final product was cheaper for people who didn’t back it. I felt kind of screwed over on that one. I didn’t complain, but I’m not a repeat customer for them.
Great post Taylor. Though I am not looking to crowd fund this advice helps with blogging as well. Thanks!
I loved this post! I’ve watched friends launch horrible kickstarters without good rewards, or a good understanding of why people would contribute. This article is a must read for someone thinking about crowd funding.
I think another important thing is remember is that if you build a tribe first, you will have a receptive audience for your crowd funding. My cousin was an “overnight” success raising over 1/2 million dollars with kickstarter… ( https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/156287353/the-tomorrow-girl-dresden-codak-volume-1 ) this however was after building a faithful following for around 8 years.
The power of story is what connects people to what we’re doing, great post.
Good stuff and thanks for the document! I’ve done pretty well with my crowd funding. In one week we’d raised $1100 for orphans in Haiti – some gave checks directly to us so it’s not on our total on gofundme. Lots and lots of prayer for our goal to be met before we leave for Haiti April 30th. I even created a little video with my own drawings one morning. Not perfect but it tells the story of what we’re doing pretty clearly. If only I could take everyone with us to see with their own eyes, they’d never be able to turn their heads away or deny that those people need help and every bit helps.
The bus driver is an awesome story! She deserved that vacation and it’s funding and I love how people can help like that!
Jon – your post is more timely than queso on a Friday afternoon. Loved the pointers from @taylorgahm and plan to incorporate into a project I’m launching via crowdsourcing next month. And one you’d be passionate about too!
This idea of being involved in a bigger story reaches well beyond the crowd-funding campaign. It is one of the three things that our church believes people need to be emotionally and spiritually healthy (being involved in a story bigger than their own), and it is one of the big motivators for people becoming truly committed to a church or another non-profit… are you inviting people into a big story, or are you just telling your own story over and over again?
Great post! This is good for those who currently have campaigns or those who are thinking of crowdfunding. Thanks for sharing!