 Hi everyone, I'm I'm happy to see that you're here today. I Was hoping for a lot more people, but maybe they'll show up. It's a Tough time for people to listen to a webinar, but This webinar today is going to be the last one until the end of July and Then we'll be back on a fairly regular schedule. So you can always Join the connecting to collections care announce list, which only sends out announcements it's not for talking to each other and If you have been receiving it and you happen to have an AOL address I'd really appreciate it if you would let me know if you've got a A Message yesterday because it looks like maybe all of the AOL addresses have been deleted so If you do that and you can send that to me at my email address, which is on this screen and That would be a big help to me and If you have questions and you want an answer from a person There's a whole army of young conservators who answer questions on the discussion forum so feel free to post them and They're really happy to have work to do and In July, we're not doing the ivory as we'd hope the person who is going to do that Have an emergency a flood at their museum and therefore won't be ready to give a Webinar in July, so we're having one on the care of books and scrapbooks and Never fear Ivory's coming up. It'll of the in December and The So in in August we're going to do one an emergency planning for collections with live materials with live animals and We're going to do a series on map cap and steps in September and And the exhibits class which will be a For fee class will be in October and I'll have more about that later We're doing one on digital imaging and metadata in November and also one on NAG Pritt issues and Jason a scoop I will post it except that it's in the slider And you can get to the announcement there And one on Ivory in December, so thank you And I'm going to turn you over to Claire Dean. It's going to be our speaker Okay, can folks hear me? Yes. Oh great. We were just having a little problem here with my connection, but So anyway, good morning afternoon to everybody. Thank you very much for spending time Listening to me prattle on for the next Short while here and also. Thank you very much for filling out the poll that has gone up This is really primarily for my interest. So I sort of know who my audience is And I suspected that most of you hadn't done crowdfunding or why would you actually be here listening to me? But you never know So just a little bit of background I'm a conservator objects conservator in private practice based here in Portland, Oregon and Have been a conservator for coming on closing in on 35 years Which is a little frightening, but there you go And so today I'm going to talk to you about crowdfunding and there's a bit more about my background in the next couple of slides As to what qualifies me to talk to you about this today I have actually asked also while I remember this that I'll get I'll answer questions at the end of the presentation. So Type them in or whatever it is you do with this thing and we'll sort them out later on so Just a bit about terminology first of all Funding versus crowdsourcing they are two different things although I hear these terms used interchangeably quite often Crowdsourcing is when you go to a group of people and ask for ideas and data and General other information sort of intangible stuff, and I think of market research as a form of crowdsourcing Whereas crowdfunding as you go to groups of people and ask for my natural support I'm sure all of you probably know the difference, but like I said I do see these things used interchangeably, which is why I've put this up here So we're going to be talking about crowdfunding today So how do I know about this what qualifies me to talk about this? Well, I've had three successful crowdfunding campaigns of my own This one here that you just seen This one the story poll project, which is the conservation one that I have done And then this one which is my current one We just finished this one in April the puddle town panorama, and in fact I'm about to launch a second phase Fundraising for that project I've also been involved with the fulfillment of seven other major Campaigns of some illustrations you see here Combined we've raised over $70,000 for these particular ones. I'm also an avid supporter of crowdfunding campaigns I've backed over 200 In the last eight years or so Giving anything from just a couple of bucks to several hundred so I believe in this source of support for all Any manner of projects? So why crowdfunding? It's a great approach because it's a grassroots approach and it's a way for you to connect directly to your most avid supporters It's egalitarian You really do sort of control everything And everyone has equal access to it. It's enabled you to access Unstrained funding meaning that you can do this as an individual many of us like myself who work in private practice It's very difficult for us sometimes to raise money for projects because we're not part of an institution But crowdfunding allows you to do that and sort of freeze you up from the constraints that Foundations may have There's also no limits on how you spend your funds you can spend it on whatever you like as long as you're obviously living up to your backers expectations and Any legal requirements that might be like I mentioned already you're in control and That means you're also in control of whether you succeed or you fail And this is a number that still blows my mind the current statistics are that in 2015 over 34 billion dollars was raised through crowdfunding across the various crowdfunding platforms so here's a couple of examples of crowdfunded collections projects and you're probably aware of these two the reboot suit Smithsonian did I think it was last year and you can see the number of backers and how much money they raised on that project and another one out of the Smithsonian Which was not quite as large financially, but avidly backed these are very big projects in terms of their outreach and numbers of People who responded to them and of course the amount of money they raised Campaigns that are being run by larger institutions such as the Smithsonian have a number of advantages You they can tap into their in-house marketing departments and their large mailing lists And social networks. They usually have staff that can help and perhaps be dedicated to these campaigns Such as their marketing and development departments They have advantages when it comes to the the incentives and the rewards that come along with most of these campaigns because they have Buying power or they're producing their own Materials in-house that can work as rewards and I'm going to talk more about those a little later on They obviously have high profiles the Smithsonian and needless to say that automatically gives them a little bit of an advantage when it comes to these campaigns and They also tend to have high profile objects or projects. I mean you don't get much high profile than Neil You have some strong space suit or the Ruby slippers. Let's be fair here So smaller campaigns, here's a couple of smaller ones And you'll be seeing a little more of I think both of these later on This is one from Great Britain from London as you can see much smaller only a hundred and ninety four backers, but they raised over $8,000 and This one my good friends down in Los Angeles the mural Conservancy who ran a Kickstarter campaign and raised almost 11,000 Through about 200 backers These smaller campaigns are the ones that I'm thinking of mostly When it comes to this webinar And I'm kind of making an assumption here that most of you fit into that category that you're from institutions That are probably going to be looking at doing these smaller more localized campaigns, but if you are from the Smithsonian congratulations And You know Maybe you can also offer us some tips here. I've just been asked to adjust my mic. So hold on one moment, please There we go. Is that a little better? I hope so I'm sure someone will tell me There we go. All right So a little talking a little bit about the platforms themselves The best known ones the ones you've probably heard about our Kickstarter and an Indiegogo and in fact if I'm not mistaken Indiegogo was the very first of these platforms that was launched. I think 2007 Kickstarter started I think 2008 or 2009 There's also go fund me which some of you may have heard of And then there are Dozens of others. I've listed a few here hatch fund Patreon or patreon feed them use chuffed and there seem to be more pop popping up all the time Each one of them has its own kind of approach to things The two best known Kickstarter and Indiegogo are both project-based meaning that they will help you raise funds for defined projects such as the conservation of the nerve Neil Armstrong space suit or If you're an independent artist You're the latest book or publication whatever it may be Go fund me is a platform for more personal needs such as medical expenses Funerals sending your kid to the prom These personal projects are not projects that Kickstarter and Indiegogo Will support on their platforms although I have heard that They may be looking at doing personal based Sort of branches of their platforms Probably in response to Go fund me so and it's going to be these project ones that we're going to look at and I'm going to concentrate mostly on Kickstarter and Indiegogo So the differences Between the primary platforms Is that Kickstarter is what we can refer to as an all or nothing? Meaning that if you do not raise your funding goal, you do not get any of the funds so All or nothing Indiegogo Is this keep what you raise platform meaning that even if you don't reach your goal whatever funds you raise? You will receive those minus necessary fees Indiegogo recently did launch a fixed-goal option. I'm assuming in response to Kickstarter and in fact, I had a project meeting of my own one of my own projects last night And I was told that Kickstarter is now looking if they haven't already at launching a keep what you raise versions So I think they're actively competing against each other. She's no big surprise But those are the two main differences in terms of actual level of funding You either get it all or you get part of it I already alluded to they have the platforms have different criteria for their use So, you know when you're researching what platform you want to use you need to keep that in mind They'll fire also have different fee rates and these fees are for The site itself for the platform itself and also usually for processing the funds Some some platforms I hear will charge more in fees if you don't reach your goal less if you do The other differences are what are called dashboard designs The dashboard is what you as the person Running the campaign see it's your way of controlling and managing your campaign They the dashboard all tell you the same thing it gives you information about who's giving you money How often where they're getting its their referrals from? How many times your video is viewed They just happen have different ways of showing you that data And some platforms require approval they will look at your project Before they'll let you launch it Some don't some just let you go ahead and post it and have at it So common features though to all of the campaigns Are obviously a project you need a project They will have an explanation of that project The financial goal that the person or organization is trying to achieve a Defined period of time. These are not usually open-ended campaigns Incentives to give Kickstarter refers to these as rewards and Indiegogo as perks They're the same thing and I mentioned the fees too. They all have fees although they may different Be slightly different from platform to platform Similarly for the processing So what you will need if you're going to do a campaign? Well, obviously, we've already just had a list there the projects, etc But there's a few additional things too You need to have a plan. I can't stress this enough planning is an enormous part of running a successful crowdfunding campaign you need to plan well ahead and During and afterwards to this is a process that has got basically three phases We're going to go over some of these in a minute or two Your campaign needs to be exciting and engaging and attention grabbing you are competing not only with other arts projects, but any number of ideas and asks for money And we are in a very visual world these days so things that you have to grab people's attention immediately or they'll move on to something else You need to have a budget and I put here that it includes your goal because a lot of folks do not ask for The entire amount that they need for a project. They'll ask for a portion of it But you need to have your entire budget on hand in order to come up with your goal your realistic goal And also just as a general management tool one of the things that I found with crowdfunding campaigns Especially Kickstarter, which is an all-or-nothing and it's my preferred platform is that They really force you to do your homework when it comes to money It forces you to sit down and really run numbers You need people to help you unless you're running an extremely small campaign I strongly advise you advise you to find a bunch of folks who will lend you a hand Because this is a lot of work plus you need people with all sorts of skills You need serious social media skills We're going to talk a bit more about that you need enthusiasm and passion for your project That sounds like an obvious thing But you've got to be able to sustain this enthusiasm and passion throughout your campaign which can be a little bit of a try at times and You need time you need to be able to dedicate a lot of time To these projects if you're going to do them to these campaigns if you're going to be successful So I'm going to go over some of these in a little bit more detail your project You need to make this Very simple and clean and well-defined. You've got to be able to explain this to people very fast And without confusion you need to be authoritative in your explanation on your campaign page But I would advise you to avoid technical terms people are not interested in technical terms And they actually tend to turn people off I've already said you got to be really enthusiastic people got to believe that this is important and that it's important to you Got to make it exciting if it doesn't seem to be an exciting project find a way to make it so And this is a really important one folks want to know why Their money or how their money is going to make a difference not just to you, but maybe to the greater world So you've got to think big and this is also Another important one I've spent quite a bit of time in preparation for this webinar going over campaigns I sort of went through Kickstarter and Indiegogo looking for campaigns related to museum collections and museums of conservation taking a look at them and It was pretty interesting to see how many of them sounded like run-throughs for an Academic paper or a presentation at AIC or somewhere like that You're not talking necessarily to your colleagues. You want everybody to be interested in this So this is another reason for not using technical terms You're not campaigning for your colleagues or to your colleagues Can be hard for us to step back like that, but we need to do it so your plan Extremely important you can't do too much of it to think this through Do your homework and by that I mean take a look at all the different platforms as I said I've mentioned Kickstarter and Indiegogo and you're gonna see more of that But of those two, but there are other ones. There are also some local ones Have a good look through them and see which ones fit you best and which ones fit The group of folks that you think you're most likely to get your funding from and That homework also involves obviously the budget and and all of those other needs that go to what you're asking for I've read in some places that folks say that you should be planning your campaign 12 months out I think that might be a little excessive especially for smaller campaigns if it's a really big one then yes I could see you needing to do 12 months out But at a minimum you want to give yourself a couple of months before you launch a campaign and more if you can and you have to remember to plan for time after your campaign ends because The campaign the live part of the campaign is really the middle of this The next bit is the bit that comes afterwards especially if you've got a lot of rewards and perks that you have to get out to people The fulfillment end is extremely important Another one that is easily forgotten by people is that you do not get your funds immediately It's typically about 15 days before that money that you have raised hits your bank account Sometimes it's less I I would say on average the projects that I've been involved with we've had our funds within about 10 days But 15 is what they tell you to plan for and I and I would recommend that that's what you do and the other one to remember especially when you are Sorting out your budget of fees remember. You're not going to get every penny that you raise There are fees that are going to be subtracted You have to allow for that And that takes us to budget and fundraising goals So again part of your planning run those budget numbers over and over again until you're absolutely sure you've got it right You need to include some things that might not at first be apparent the costs of the rewards if you are offering incentives for folks to give then the cost of those you've got to cover it somehow and Typically you write those into the amount of money that you are asking for the cost of shipping them And other costs especially the video which we're going to talk about and if you have to hire somebody to shoot that for you You've got to cover that cost somehow Another way of looking at budgeting to is to consider matching funds some campaigns I've seen have a matching component. So they've got another sponsor on board who has said, you know if you raise this much will give you such and such that's a great way of Sort of spreading the load in terms of finding funding for a project. It's so a great incentive for people to give I have done This is my 20th year of doing volunteer management for Oregon Public Broadcasting So yeah, I'm one of those people that's down at the radio station on pledge drives. In my case It's making sure our volunteers are all sugared up and caffeine caffeinated But when we have a matching Pledge when we have a match challenge The number of donations we get goes through the roof So that incentive to give money because somebody else is extremely powerful Consider fundraising in phases and that's actually something I'm in the middle of right now the last campaign that I showed you That I have done myself was a phase one for a project. I'm building right now and We will be launching in about two or three weeks the second phase So that first phase was seed money primarily for materials to build and The second phase that we're launching will be to continue the build and finish it and purchase some additional bits and pieces Which we would like to have for this particular project So we've broken it into two phases one of the great advantages of doing that is it allows you to show your donors That you have done something with their money. So you've taken that first phase money and you Have used it you can then photograph it film it whatever and then use that to Boster your second your second phase and sort of encourage people and get them enthusiastic about helping you out some more Don't be afraid to share your budget as part of your campaign Folks like to see where their money is going and they're more likely to give if they know what you exactly know what you're spending your money on It also shows that you you've done your homework that you know what you're doing and that your numbers are realistic and Don't be afraid to explain why projects cost as much as they do All of us in the museum world know that this is a problem folks don't understand that caring for collections costs money and Often way more money than most folks realize So it's also an education opportunity This is very important especially for folks that are doing this as individuals The IRS considers Crowdfunding as taxable income there are various Levels that you have to meet before it becomes that and your tax advisor can help you with that Your accountant also the various platforms have got Paragraphs and sections on their websites about the tax responsibilities for folks who work for non-profits many of the platforms have Sort of division or a section that relates to Specifically to the needs of non-profits including the differences in taxation for non-profits So this is another reason for doing your homework And checking it out, and I do believe there are actually some platforms specifically for non-profits I'm not familiar with those I have to say but I've been told there are so we mentioned teams I Said already don't try and do it all yourself unless it's a very small project that Second project. I showed you of mine briefly the the the story pole the shelter for story pole I did that one entirely myself But it was a pretty easy ask And a small project, but even then it took up a lot of my time. I For your own sanity get a group of people around you to help help out You're bound to need the skills that they all have and the other real Advantage of having a team as I'm delegate is that That common interest in and passion for the project is Translatable to your donors they can see that there's a group of people who are trying to do this that that it's important to a Large number of people and you're all on board that is very encouraging when it comes to future donors So yeah, the donors prefer to give to an organization or an identifiable group They see that as less risky than giving money to an individual, which is totally understandable This is a big one social media Campaigns do not take care of themselves. I cannot stress that enough in my Trolling around at campaigns in preparation for this webinar I took a look at the ones that had failed and there are a few of them and I Can spot why they failed part of it has to do with The video and we're almost on the video section but another thing has to do that it is clear from the Updates and other parts of their campaign page that they basically launched this and walked away from it and expected it to somehow Create its own momentum. It doesn't it's competing with everything else out there The first crowdfunding campaign that I had anything to do with was in late 2009 And it was a Kickstarter campaign and Kickstarter I think was barely a year old at that point and it's amazing to see the difference in the sheer volume of projects that were on Kickstarter back at the end of 2009 and today and You are competing against every one of those So you need to push this through social media and through email So yeah campaigns live and die based on social media and email outreach and this is an interesting statistic I found in my research is that actually emails result in 34 percent higher response than the social media callouts So use those mailing lists, especially if you work for an institution that has got a membership Or a newsletter something like that Leverage those as much as you possibly can it makes a huge difference The social media part it really involves getting folks to share your project to tell their friends about it and When you run one of these it's pretty interesting the dashboard that I mentioned to you because you can see the activity Going to your campaign page When you do a major push or you get your team to do a major social media push You can see that spike come in within the next 24 hours 36 hours. It's pretty remarkable This is something that actually works very well, especially if you already have a donor base And that is to send out to the folks that support you already Especially if you're an institution about 48 hours before that you're going to be doing your campaign You let them know it's coming up And where it's going to be you know, which site it's on etc This is because if you can get those folks to donate to you and your campaign in the first couple of days It gives your entire campaign a huge boost Indiegogo says that 30 percent that it says that campaigns that reach 30 percent of their goal within the first two days Are the ones more likely to exceed their goal in it was to raise more money than they're asking for so Getting that soft launch and getting your donors ready to press the button and send you some bucks and get it moving Is is really important because those are also the people that will then go and share your project with their friends and Hopefully keep the momentum going All platforms have the ability for you to update your campaign So that you can during the course of the live campaign you can post updates as to What you're doing if you're already building something in our case and posting updates about our current project as regularly as I can and It's a way of telling people even more about your project So those updates are very very important. I believe Kickstarter suggests that you should at a minimum For something like a three-week live campaign do at least four updates These go up on the site So anybody coming to it can see them They also will get sent directly to your back as the folks that have already donated will get that update they have the option to Control that if they don't want to hear updates they can set their mailing receiving thing from the platform to not forward them, but It you know keeps keeps the enthusiasm going the video This is something that you're going to come across any websites or sources of information about Running crowdfunding campaigns is going to are going to stress the importance of the video The video because we're in a in a very visual society these days. The video is what the first thing folks go to Campaigns with a video raise four times more cash on average than those that do not So that right there Explains why this is important videos need to be extremely short two to three minutes You need to do it in such a way that you're going to grab your audience in the first 30 seconds And in fact last night I was talking to the gentleman that's going to do a new video for the campaign second phase of the campaign that we're about to launch and he was saying 15 seconds If you don't have their interest in those first 15 seconds you might as well Forget the video so keep it short and keep it energetic and visually exciting Quality matters, especially the sound so do the best you can Make it cheerful easy and interesting and This one I've learned and it I'm serious test it on a teenager If the teenager will sit through the first 30 seconds you've got a chance because they're so used to Moving around on the on video games and the rest of it that if you can grab their attention Then you've got something that's likely to work And also you your updates can be videos And this is this is something that's very appealing to people when they actually can see and hear things happening as part of your updates All right So I am Susan I'm assuming you can hear me Can we take a look? I've got a couple of videos to show you and these are both videos that I think are actually excellent And they are the videos for those two smaller campaigns that I showed you at the beginning one is from The East London Women's Museum and the other is from the mural folks so it doesn't matter which one goes first Susan You can do whichever one you like. Oh, I guess I pressed the button There we go. Our current project Galileo Jupiter Apollo by John Whirlie was created during the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival shortly after Galileo mission reached Planet Jupiter In this mural John imagined the rings of Jupiter being composed by ruins of the mythical Tower of Babel This project 25 feet high by 200 feet long Is the largest and most challenging restoration today Involving heavy expenses, which are non-profit organization is currently seeking to secure fun Today for the first time we're asking for your support By making a pledge you will allow us to achieve this tremendous Undertaking and finally bring this masterful partner back to life Be a part of this adventure Help us to keep the Los Angeles mural legacy preserved. So there are two short videos One of them was under two minutes. The other was three seconds over three minutes And I think you'll agree. They were pretty much to the point Explained everything and they were eye-catching and that's what you need to try and achieve One thing that I know appeals to people too is if they actually see footage of Folks in person so instead of the voiceover that we saw at with the LA murals one Actually having a camera face that I would suggest to you that if you've got if you are really good at doing that if you're a good Have a good sense in front of a camera and are appealing in front of a camera go for it Or if you have someone in your team who is but a lot of us find that quite difficult to do I do personally. I don't find it very easy at all. I think I'm boring So I would go for the voiceover personally so just you know You've got to kind of get some input from people as to to what you need to do To make it appealing All right perks and rewards and I can see we've got a question already about perks and rewards So this is a very important part these are all very important parts We like to think folks give to us just because they want to and most people do But having an incentive does make a difference people like to have a little Something to mark the fact that they supported a project But you need to remember that the fulfillment of these rewards actually sending these out Is is The work that happens right after you finish Raising the money and which is probably the time when the last thing you want to be doing is taking things to the post office So this is another part of the planning thing and that you've got to set side a time to set time aside and Also help with that because it's a large part of your time factor so The statistics from Kickstarter and Indiegogo suggests that the typical single donation is about 25 to 30 dollars. I Would back that up But in the campaigns that I have been involved with I've also found that there are different levels that people like to give out And these are to me the magic numbers five bucks ten bucks fifty seventy five and a hundred and also above that And if you're going to offer incentive and incentives and rewards you've got a plan accordingly and perhaps think about the that level of giving When you're deciding what? to To offer It's obviously if somebody's going to give you five bucks. You're not going to be giving them the silk screen Hoodie at five bucks. It's going to be a Something bigger To talk about specific ideas for these rewards in a minute, but this is a magic one that I found to is combinations so on my campaigns and on other campaigns I've been involved with with we will often Produce a level that is a combination of two others. So for example the first crowdfunding one that I did for myself I had an embroidered patch made and I also had Sort of pendant necklace that was like a dog tag. This was for an art project that involved a mechanical dog. It's a long story Those were separately. They were available separately at different levels And I cannot remember exactly what they were now But let's just say that the the patch was at $20 and the pendant was at 30 So if you were going to get both of those you would typically expect to have to put up 40 50 bucks, right? I Offered them as a combination at 45 and That actually ended up to be that 45 level the most popular level of giving for that particular campaign so it's that sort of By one get the other one half price idea makes a huge difference to people the way they think Let's see Keeping your perks simple manageable and easy to ship so When you start thinking about what it is that you want to offer as an incentive it obviously needs to be something that's directly related to the project Very common perks are things like I mentioned the embroidered patches Common one right now a very popular one right now are these little hard enamel pins with the little tie-tack back on them That has the logo your institution's logo or your project's logo if it has that Other ones are the very at the very low end of things like stickers people love stickers So for five bucks you send them a sticker that costs you about five cents plus the postage There's your so your return is about four bucks on your on your five buck donation, and it's easy to ship If you go through campaigns take a look at what they're offering that gives you a sense of what? Popular items The big thing to remember is you have to ship these out So you need to have things that are easy to ship that don't weigh a whole lot that aren't going to cost a lot to ship And are not awkward You can package them in flat rate boxes that kind of thing But you do need to make your perk relevant to your project somehow I Mentioned this the cost of shipping including internationally now in the time that I've been involved with crowdfunding This has changed a lot the first crowdfunding project I had anything to do with wasn't one of my own, but I was one of the Organizers of it back in late 2009 kickstarter did not When you when you start your campaign and you lay it out before you launch it When it comes to the perks it asks you to describe what you're offering and the donation level etc It did not have a little button that added in the shipping or allowed you to add in the shipping We guessed at it and we were pretty close on some of the items But we were way out on a couple of others and ended up losing some money With those particular perks because we did not Calculate the shipping properly and by calculating it I really mean taking whatever it is putting it in the packaging and weighing it and Finding out what the shipping is going to be don't guess and this is especially important for international stuff Stuff that may be going internationally because remember these platforms are worldwide now the The change that has happened since 2009 is that both indiegogo and Kickstarter when you design your campaign And you're doing this particular section It allows you to add in the shipping so it will save for example Let's let's say a sticker you're offering a sticker at the five dollar level When you design the campaign you put in that five bucks and it will ask you If you want to add an additional amount for that shipping, so let's say you put in 50 cents When the donor then backs you at that level When they get the little pop-up box that says thank you for your donation. You've chosen this level It will also add in the shipping so it will say Like a little receipt five bucks donation 50 cents for shipping That was an enormous improvement For those of us doing crowdfunding campaigns. It really helped immensely But you still need to do your homework because you still need to figure out exactly what that shipping cost is going to be The other one that we found got us in 2009 with the international stuff was that We had a couple of things that were sent to the UK that were never collected and we couldn't figure out why and I finally One at one time while I was home in the UK Realized what it was when somebody sent something to me and I got a notice From customs and exercise to say there was duty due on it And it was because the value of the thing being sent to me was above their minimum duty And so they were holding it and expecting me to come down and pay duty on it And I think that's what happened to the two things that were ultimately returned to us From that 2009 campaign because we declared their full value and it was way higher Than the duty of the duty ceiling and I think the folks just decided now. We're not doing that We've given the money. We're happy with that, but we're not paying additional duty So that's a trickier one to figure out But I just throw that out there as an experience When you're ordering perks, especially if you are getting things made for your campaign such as embroidered patches and stickers and such Some companies require minimum orders. I the campaign that I've Just run the first phase of one of my perks was an enameled Tin mug and there was a minimum order that I needed to meet to do to Make that a reality We did not get anywhere near that In terms of our donations or at that level the level at which we were offering that but it I wasn't too worried about it because those Particular mugs will be used for future fundraising for this project both in the second phase and beyond So I'm confident that we will clear that But you have again that's this is part of thinking this through because you know like all these things you don't want to be left with a huge amount of Overstock that you can't shift So again, if you're having things ordered think about long term Is this something that might be able to help support the project or your institution down the line before you go ordering? thousands of embroidered patches Another thing that has been proven to work is to actually add Rewards during your cat your campaign this live ends it up and gets people interested And sometimes gets folks to give twice. I've had that happen quite often So that's another option and you can do that. It's one of the things that you can change in your campaign while it's live by the way You cannot change your Ultimate goal for fundraising As far as I know on any of these platforms when you say I want to raise five thousand. That's it You can do what are called stretch goals Kickstarter does that I believe in the go-go does as well Where you can say as part of your updates. Okay, if we reach five thousand If we would that's great if we reach six thousand we're going to release a whole bunch of other rewards And so there's an incentive for people to continue to give beyond that initial goal So that's one way that you can actually extend the amount of money The goal that you can't sort of go in there and type a different goal Initial goal. So you have that I hope I made sense there anyway timing This is important to and may not be an obvious thought First of all, you do not want to do not rush launching make sure that you have got everything in place And that you're confident before you press that launch button How long should it be for that is a difficult question to answer but both Indiegogo and Kickstarter suggests 30 to 39 days Is the optimum for campaigns? I actually prefer to do mine shorter. I usually head for 21 days That suits the kind of fundraising that I've been involved with but if your campaign is more than 30 to 39 days It loses momentum and folks aren't interested and it just goes stale And and you're also sitting there potentially with no more money coming in But you can't get access to what you've already raised because the campaign is continuing So remember that you don't get any of your money until that period of fundraising time has been completed but some strange reason the statistics From the platform suggests that Mondays and Tuesdays are the most successful days to launch Weekends are not good because people are busy doing other things Nor is Friday night because most people are doing something else as well But Mondays and Tuesdays for some reason are good days Avoid Beginning and ending your campaign close to public holidays because again folks are doing other things. They're distracted. They're not interested in Whether you're frantically trying to raise that last 200 bucks to make your Kickstarter goal Likewise Friday and Saturday night support Sunday mornings are poor folks are sleeping in late Friday afternoons Just think about when you are most likely to be looking yourself at stuff on the web and Times when you're less likely to that's when everyone else is probably less likely to as well So that's not when you want to be certainly not when you want to be trying to make that last few hundred bucks This is one a friend of mine recently pointed out to me that and I never thought about this because I'm so employed So I don't get paid on a regular basis on the first of the 15th for the 10 of the 25th but Bearing those pay dates potentially in mind is an interesting one especially for Perhaps finishing a campaign And I mentioned this to a few other friends recently who do a lot of crowdfunding and they said the same thing that They try and bear in mind people's typical pay cycles for When people are likely to have a bit of money in their pockets and might be interested in giving If you're a nonprofit Launching a campaign in that sort of end of calendar year tax year is not a bad idea That's why you hear public broadcasting Suggesting that it's the end of the calendar year and maybe you've got a little money and you're looking for a tax deduction So if you're a nonprofit that might be a good time of year for you to think about running a campaign I'm I'm a not a nonprofit I Actually avoid the end of the year because I think everybody's spending their money on Christmas presents, but Just another idea for you to mull over there. So fees and taxes I I Already explained that these vary from platform to platform They tend to range between five and ten percent of the total you raised. So the platforms have different amounts. They take from you For nonprofits sometimes those fees are lower I already mentioned this is taxable income So you do need to consider that when you run your campaign and take advice from your tax accountant And look at the platforms for information. They all have information on this. I can't remember if I put in something here about Yep tax rules differ for nonprofits The fees there's also fees taken out for processing the funds this depends on whether the platform uses Amazon or uses PayPal But those processing fees are also Taken out of your total the last campaign that I ran Earlier this month. I think I figured out that we effectively lost a total of About nine percent Of what we raised so the combination of the platform fees and the money processing fees amounted to about nine percent So my top tips. This is really a bit more of a summary than anything else Have a solid project a solid budget teamwork Do your homework? Have a positive and dedicated mindset you've got to want to do this Because you're gonna you're gonna be living your campaign for the period of time before during and after and of course you've got to remember you have a Responsibility to your backers to deliver both the project and rewards if you're offering them Both Kickstarter and Indiegogo have fantastic handbooks and guides available on their websites are easy to find In fact, I think I put the links to them in the handout That comes with this webinar Do take a look at those before you do anything So that you get a sense of what they're requiring also both of those websites if you go to the Kickstarter and Indiegogo websites you will find Pages there with sort of news and updates and statistics Kickstarter does a review at the end of every year of the projects that have run that year and the kind of money that's been raised They all have useful information that that will help you with your Your project and as I've said already if it doesn't take care of itself. Oh Yes, this is another thing that is fairly recent. This never happened back in 2009 10 11 But in recent years because crowdfunding has become such a popular way of listing funds There are companies that have set themselves up To actually help you run and manage campaigns and do the fulfillment and I've discovered that they're obviously watching the main platforms for new projects and you will suddenly get a comment on your Campaign page saying oh, we saw you. We're really interested in your project. It looks great. And by the way, we run a company That will manage it for you or we'll do the fulfillment. I have had obviously for a fee So that's going to take money out of what you've already raised. I personally do not use those. I never have I have a group of people who help with this and we do it ourselves It might be something if it was an enormous campaign that you were running where you would find this useful I think most of these are Used to folks who are raising money to launch new products Which is a different thing, but they're also on Kickstarter and Indiegogo. So Before you take up any of those offers have a really good look at them because they're going to take money out of Your goal and you have probably not budgeted for that see Okay, so now I'm going to take Susan's advice here. I have got a number of examples of campaigns That I've been involved with where you can see the dashboard so I can show you what you see at the Backend so to speak but also I see that we've got some questions. So Susan I'm seeking your advice here Which would you prefer that I do? Why don't you go ahead with with that and then we'll do the questions because okay? I'm sure that Looking at those will raise some questions, too Okay. All right, so we'll All right, so I'm gonna run there's a lot of them So I may skip over a few of these I threw a bunch of them up here just as Examples so we're going to take a really fast look at the project that I did on Kickstarter for the the Native American story poll this was to raise money to build a monkey hut Well, I call a monkey. It's a polytunnel over a pole that is awaiting Conservation and restoration so this is the black page effectively for that project and as you go down through it There's all sorts of information about the person who's going to be doing the restoration is responsible for that pole Which is my good friend here Felix And also on the other side on the right side is you can see what actually that was the highest reward level that we had that 125 Which all were taken which was nice. There was only two of them, but anyway Moving on down as just more information about the rewards and this is the back side of this so this is the dashboard and I apologize. These are just quick screen grabs. So I'm not sure whether you can what how much of this you can read but This is the very top of that dashboard. So it's got the total amount we raised How many was that funded at a hundred and thirty four percent how many backers and below it? There's a graph that's showing you the process that the progress of that Project over time. So this is this is all sorts of statistics and these are updated in real time So whilst this is what it looks like right now at the end of the campaign I could have looked at this two days in and seen where we were There's more information about where folks are finding out about the project Whether it's coming through Facebook or somebody's searching for it Whatever the popularity of the rewards that top one there project of video plays it tells me how many people actually looked at the video Most importantly, how many of them looked at it to the end and you can see only about 50% of people actually Looked at that video, which was about two minutes long all the way to the end Reward popularity so you get a good sense of what folks are Liking this information is really really useful if you run subsequent crowdfunding campaigns because you get a sense of what people are interested in Which one is this one? So yes, it's it's also Kickstarter gives you the option to link into Google Analytics tracking so you get more information about the activity on a daily basis So I've I've redacted some information here because these Spray-pated out names are my backers including I think that email addresses. That's why those are there But this is my backer report. So it tells me all this information about how much they gave me and when and whether they Asked for reward and if they did whether I fulfilled it. So this is a great management tool Surveys this is this is actually to do with what goes out to the backers at the end of the campaign saying they've been successful Please send us a double check confirm your shipping information This is the one I just did earlier this year and the one I'm about to launch a second phase for So this is Indiegogo previous one was Kickstarter. So they look very similar They have the main project information and then down the right side information about the perks they're just sort of Graphically look a little different This is the updates section for the Indiegogo So I was able as we did our three-dimensional drawings and what have you to post those as updates and Folks can look at all of the updates. They can page back and forth through them This is what I see when I put in updates. It just looks like a you know regular kind of window that I type text into and Can spell check it the rest of it and then launch it And this is Indiegogo's back a report and I did check with Eric to have his name there He didn't have a problem with that But I mentioned something about adding a reward and it's sometimes encouraging people to give twice And that's exactly what happened with mr. Shapiro there He had already pledged 25 and I put something else up and he wanted that too and so he added another 30 I managed to get 55 out of my good friend Eric instead of 25, but it's the same thing here. It's got the the Rewards the amount they gave and Other information embedded in there Again, this is the Indiegogo's progress chart same idea I can look at this at any time during the campaign and see where the spikes in interest are and you can see those as pink columns are kind of like When we did a push in it The giving jumped up Again where folks are getting their information from This one was kind of interesting. I don't think Kickstarter does this one It gives me a pie chart of where the funding is coming from so the most of it came from the US But I also was getting Contributions from the United Kingdom Japan and Canada and France So this is a description of the perks that we had for the Indiegogo Project there is a similar page on Kickstarter. I just haven't put it up here And there are those combinations. I was talking about that are very popular With folks so one is like a hoodie in the mug with stickers and a patch that kind of thing and again, here's the Fulfillment report a bit different the kickstart at the same information now and it allows me to manage and keep track of what we have fulfilled and what we have And this is an interesting one for you folks. So here's that breakdown. I was talking about so we raised 4513 but I only got 4128 now you can see the fees there the deductive fees for Indiegogo and the processing fees That's the last one that was quicker than I thought so let's see Susan questions Erica O'Connor asked with kicks to a starter if you do not reach your goal Can you personally put in the difference or to get what you had raised or what you were aiming to raise? That's a very very good question. The short answer is no, you can't you can't back your own campaign however That does not prevent you from giving your best friend 500 bucks in case you're a 500 bucks short at the end of the campaign I Don't know a person that's done crowdfunding that hasn't done something like that But the rules are and I don't think they've changed that you can't back your own campaign But yeah, yeah, you can you can work around that if need be and I'll be honest. I've done it for other campaigns where we've had a Perk level that I I we've all been convinced would be Popular and it's been a limited one so there's been like six of them but nobody's taken them and I have Effectively given somebody whatever the amount is a hundred bucks say and said would you donate and Use this hundred bucks they have and suddenly all six of them have gone Because Yeah, yeah, suddenly people going. Oh, we might miss it Okay There there's several questions about Perks, and I'll read them one by one Um, how do you figure out the rewards in Perks? Now you did talk about that, but is there anything else? Yeah, it this is extremely difficult if you've not done it before and I there is not an easy answer to this I would suggest that you Look at other count if you can find similar campaigns that have run and that have been successful take a look at what they're offering It I I wish that we could do this without incentives It would make life so much easier and you'd actually raise more money, but human nature just isn't like that So if you can find something that's unusual, but it's cheap for you to produce And cheap for you to ship Then go for it. I know that doesn't quite I'm frustrated here, too, because I'm not really sure how to answer that That question I've always done it by taking a look at what other people have been offering and My projects tend to be very similar to an entire community if you haven't figured this out already by the two campaigns That have my name on them that aren't conservation and then some of the others I showed you I'm a veteran attendee of Burning Man, and I am involved have been involved most of my crowdfunding Has been involved with raising money for our projects for Burning Man, and I know my audience. I know who is going to be Backing me and I know what they like But I also you know you look at the Kickstarter campaign both for the ruby slippers and the Neil Armstrong suit and They were offering very simple things like embroidered badges and stickers and the like Which seems to be a universal appeal have a universal appeal Around here. Yeah, because I'm not it's a terribly difficult question to answer Yeah, there's a question of And I have to say that I just recently Looked at a Kickstarter campaign where you could opt to not have a reward Yes, thank you for mentioning that all of them have that Indiegogo does too so you can say no reward And in fact that last one that I did the Indiegogo one For the Puddletown panorama 50% of the people that gave to me did not ask for a reward Okay, so yes, there is that that option to obviously and There is a Question is there a great website to order these gifts and perks? No, the short answer is no I have got a couple of suppliers that I use for embroidered patches when it comes to stickers I Basically spend an hour or so Checking out the prices for you know, Vista print local print shops that I have Here in Portland to find The deal that I want If you know if you work for an institution that It's doing t-shirts for example, you've got a meet you're in a museum that has its own t-shirts go and find out If they can do a limited edition of t-shirts for example and what that cost would be but There are so many suppliers out there Again, this is where the homework comes in That there is not one single supplier that that that does perks I'm I'm just gonna add this one because it has to do with rewards. Yeah, and I'm Lisa Rowan said when should you order the rewards in case people opt out of having them? Okay, good question. I Let's see I tend to order After we finished If there is a minimum order and we're part way through a campaign and it's clear that we've got a popular level I'll order immediately and float the cost because I know that that I sense that we're going to cover it Most of those sites that I think yeah, no, I know Kickstarter and Indiegogo when you set up your Campaign and you're at the page where the perks are there's usually something at the bottom that asks you for each reward When you expect to fulfill that reward? That So that tells the backer not to expect it by return of mail the day after your campaign has ended So you can actually put in there that? It's going to be a month or two months after That gives so that buys you the time to do the ordering This all is part of finding out about minimum orders and such I typically for stickers and embroidered patches order them Before the campaign and that is because I know that these are popular for the audience that I am Engaging with and that I also will use them beyond the campaign So when we have we just had a yard sale for example in May in support of the puddle town and I was able to have the patches and the stickers there for that To sell to folks so that I you know and we're going to be using them again in our second phase So it's again. It's all part of sitting down and figuring this out. There's no easy answer to that one But you certainly can sort of give yourself time after the campaign and not have your donors upset about it because they Were expecting it immediately the other thing I've just remembered which I don't think they do on Kickstarter But I know I noticed they do on Indiegogo because this last campaign I did was with it was on Indiegogo But once the campaign ends you have the ability to lock the donation So that they can't change it and it's not because that doesn't mean they can't back out They they actually they can but they have to when the campaign ends they have to request To withdraw their donation. It's like the door comes down when that Your campaign ends. There's a question that goes along with that from Erica O'Connor again That says are there challenges associated with getting funds from foreign countries? currency exchange Would I need to deal with this or do the platforms have this covered? the platforms have it covered because it's usually done through PayPal or Amazon Which and that's where part of these fees come in They my understanding is that the amount the cost to you Let's say, you know your donation level is at ten bucks. You will get that ten bucks back You will get that ten bucks because the conversion is done by the payment platform Okay, that makes sense and yeah, and Erica also asked And before I ask her second question, I want to know I want to remind you please fill out the Evaluations and the link is right here in the middle now Erica says is it possible they have the same Kickstarter with two language versions? For example, I'm looking to raise funds in funding in the US and Russia Okay, so I Have not had to deal with that, but I do know that Kickstarter now has platforms Across Internationally, so you you will see And on my screen just went blank. There we go. You will see campaigns from The countries all over Europe and they've been adding countries for a while It was just the US and then I think they added in Great Britain was the first secondary one So they go out internationally now language-wise. I honestly can't answer that question but I would suggest that you take a look at The websites for Indiegogo and Kickstarter and see What they say you can also send them questions. They do have a Sort of customer support way I would also do the old Google thing because there are all sorts of communities to do with crowdfunding out there who may be I'm able to answer that that question. I'm also sure that there are probably crowdfunding platforms in those specific countries specific to those countries in That case you probably can't just transfer a Kickstarter campaign directly over you would actually be running two separate ones So I'm sorry. That's not probably as good an answer as you would like. It's an excellent question though about Languages, so And McCudden asks is there any indication which social media outlets work best for promoting a campaign? All of them. I've seriously I've discovered see I I have I have a Facebook account Myself I do not do Twitter. I do not do snapchat. I do not do whatever the heck the other ones are I'm at that age where I have hard enough time dealing with email and Facebook But this is another reason for having a team because a Lot of the folks that I work with are much younger than myself and are way on top of the farm or on top of this than I am I do know that Facebook is a very important one, and I also know that Twitter is a really important one I don't know that one is any better than the others I would advise you to get out on as many of them as you possibly can Okay Brett Powell says we're creating a Kickstarter for creating training Videos be a legitimate target goal. Absolutely. That's a project Yeah kicks Kickstarter would consider that a project. Yes Okay, the quick answer to that and Gabriel Newman asks It looks like a lot of work for a nonprofit to organize I know each organization is different But would you have a minimum goal to aim for if you were paying staff to run a fundraising project? Mm-hmm. Excuse me. Oh I'm not sure how to answer that one Gabriel First off. Yes, it's a lot of work. It doesn't matter if you're a nonprofit or or a for-profit or an individual like I am This is a lot of work It's a it's a project in of itself as For paying staff, I'm just I'm just sorry great Gabriel. I'm just reading you I see it now. I'm just reading your question again bad with me one minute here Would I have a minimum goal to aim for if I was paid I Can't answer that because I've never paid staff to do a crowdfunding. It's all been done with volunteers So I can't honestly answer that one Gabriel. I'm sorry Yeah, I think that's a really hard question Um, Meryl Browner has a question Processing a collection takes labor. Can you crowdfund for that labor? Okay, so the answer to that is You turn it You you would turn that into a project So if I'm understanding the correct that the collection correctly, this would be something like Let's say your museum has just received a huge donation from a private collector and you need the funds to do the cataloging accession in cataloging and You know housing it putting it into storage that is a project and the answer is yes You can fundraise for that through Kickstarter or Indiegogo if you were trying to fundraise for funds just to do Your collection managers position for example No Kickstarter and Indiegogo. I don't think would accept that because it's like an ongoing Overhead cost rather than a defined project And so Kickstarter and Indiegogo are very much for these defined projects You Couldn't theory do a go fund me Because it would be that's something that would sort of is like an open-ended I'll give you another example. There is a person in my community here in Portland who is has a chronic illness and Is Unemployable basically and there are a number of us who donate to her go fund me every month to help pay for her prescriptions Lord knows we shouldn't have to be doing that, but we are and That's a go fund me because it's an ongoing Funding that is required that that that's open-ended effectively and is not a project It's a personal thing. So if you were wanting to fund a position in a museum, you would have to do something like a go fund me But yeah housing a collection if it's a specific collection that you can put effectively a fence around if you like a Definition around then yes, that's a project Okay, I think that's all the questions. So I just want to remind people about the webinar coming up on July 28th. That's on I'm caring for scrapbooks and books and We hope you enjoy the summer between now and then please fill out the evaluation link. Thank you so much Claire This was great. You're very welcome. Thank you guys for taking time to listen to me. Yeah, and thank you Mike So We'll see you the end of July