Fundraising Update

So far I have raised roughly $650 dollars to go towards the completion of this project!

This is great! I could not have done it without everyone who helped me along the way. Over the weekend my indiegogo fundraising campaign ended. It was no big deal, I barely noted the occasion. I realized a while ago that I was not going to meet my goal, but I am satisfied with the results of the campaign and the money I have right now.

The original project budget (the dream budget) is about $4,600, however, there will be ways for me to continue if this goal is not met. For one, I have started finding deals on items, such as the projector that was found by technical director, EJ, that only costs $100 instead of the originally projected $300. Additionally I expect that as time unfolds I will find other ways to trim the budget. My current barebones budget lies at $1100 and I believe that goal is easily do-able and I feel confident that I will not only meet it but exceed it.

I have also begun applying for grant funding from sources such as the Social Venture Fund at Hampshire College and Do Something, and organization that donates seed money to many youth produced projects regularly. In the near future I will continue to apply for grants as they come up.

ALSO RIGHT NOW the project is entered in the FACT Social Justice Competition:
http://www.netsquared.org/projects/re-mapping-our-hisstories

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE become a fan of the project and support this work! There are many benefits if my project does well in this contest such as consultations and funding for the project (that could potentially fund the project in full!)

Soon I will move the online fundraising component of my project to LongTail, a crowdfunding site promoting socially minded projects. While the website is still in it's beta form it will be going fully live soon and I am excited to be working with the founders of the site to host and promote the Re-Mapping Our (his)Stories project.

I want to thank everyone for helping/participating in this project so far! There is SO much more to come!

-Helyx

Reflections on the first 11 days of fundraising

Fundraising is hard. 11 Days ago I launched the fundraising campaign of my project on indiegogo- which is a crowd-funding website. Since then I have raised $115. Some of it has come from sources that I expected. Most of the donations have come from people who I was pleasantly surprised to see that she donated to me. This I suppose is the ups and downs of crowd funding. As a principle I like the concept, it’s an easy, visible and transparent way for me to put together $3000 and provide incentives for the people who donate. However, generating the interactivity with the website and the actual activity of donating has proved difficult. Many people who I was hoping would donate have not yet and I hope that the pace of fundraising will pick up in the next 49 days.

Any hints/tips out there for engaging folks in fundraising? What would help encourage you to donate???


check out and pass on the link-

http://www.indiegogo.com/Re-Mapping-Our-histories