For several days now, I have been trying to write a blog post about crowdfunding: why I think it’s a good match for The Doreen Brownstone Film Spectacular, and what I like about it in general.
But, it is slowly turning into a blogpost about procrastination, and worse yet, one that mirrors its content in its process (ie: I keep procrastinating finishing it).
So, I find myself with the original version of that post, and instead, I’m going to celebrate day 20—the ½ way mark of our 40 day Indiegogo campaign—by listing 20 interesting facts about crowdfunding that I’ve learned in preparing and/or running this campaign, or that people have brought up to me in messages or conversation.
Here they are, in no particular order:
- You don’t need to subscribe to Indiegogo, to follow and/or donate to a campaign.
- To get updates from the campaign sent directly to your e-mail address, click on the pink star (or the word “follow”) below the pitch video. You will then get any campaign updates e-mailed directly to you.
- You can contribute as little as $1 at a time.
- Donating a small amount of money does make a difference: the number of donors contributes to a campaign’s gogofactor.
- Gogofactor? Yes. Indiegogo uses an algorithm ( “gogofactor”) that tracks the amount of activity a campaign generates: and the more activity a campaign generates, the more visible the campaign becomes on Indiegogo, and the more donations from ‘strangers’ are likely to come in: think of it as your donation potentially spawning more donations.
- Thanks to “gogofactor”, you can help The Doreen Brownstone Film Spectacular with no money at all in a number of ways:
- Simply commenting on the Indiegogo campaign will help our gogofactor
- Sharing or referring people to the campaign using one of the sharetools on the indiegogo page itself will also help our gogofactor.
- The total number of page visits a campaign receives also affects the gogofactor.
10. Moving away from gogofactor—if you have an Indiegogo profile, you get credit for every person who visits a campaign page because of your referral. Should you ever wish to run your own campaign, this is a good thing.
11. If you didn’t select a perk and wish you had, just get in touch with us through a direct message or private comment, and we’ll make the adjustment.
12. You can upgrade your perk for The Doreen Brownstone Film Spectacular campaign by making an additional donation (again—just send us a private message after the donation; it won’t show up on the page, but as long as you use the same e-mail address, it will all get we will add up the total amount you donated(this can vary from campaign to campaign, but this is how we’re doing it here at DBFS!).
13. You can keep the amount you donate private (only you and the campaign owners will know), or not. It’s your choice.
14. You can keep your name/identity anonymous, or use whatever moniker you like.
15. If you have an Indiegogo profile (which you can create free of charge), you have even more options, and can change your visibility status at any time.
16. You can donate as many times as you want.
17. You can even donate in someone else’s name: you could make several donations in the name of each of your kids, for instance.
18. Crowdfunding isn’t just about raising money: it’s also about raising awareness and hopefully sparking excitement about our project. Once the campaign is over, the Indiegogo page will stay up, and we will continue to provide updates throughout all the stages of the film.
19. “Crowd’ is the secret to crowdfunding: our campaign is nowhere without you and the other fabulous spctacular supporters. Thanks for reading all the way to the end—If there are things you’re curious about in regards to our campaign, we’d love to hear from you!
20. Having started this post on a procrastinatory note, it seems fitting to point out that it’s important to let people know the time limited nature of your campaign; it will end, and often sooner than we think. The Doreen Brownstone Film Spectacular, for instance, is ending on January 26th, 2014.
20 days to go folks! You’ll be hearing from me again…unless I’m quietly procrastinating…
-Stefanie
