Kickstarter

Kickstarter tips and ways to raise Fund

Raising funds over online fundraising websites like Kickstarter, has been an effective and easy fundraising technique adopted in the modern era. Fundraisers from all over the world have been profitably raising funds using websites like Kickstarter. The ease of use and easier means to start a fundraising idea and launch it over websites like Kickstarter readily attracts fundraisers to them as a means for launching their fundraising idea.

The added advantage, of online websites like Kickstarter, of global exposure to fundraising ideas also is another jewel in the crown of these websites. But many fundraisers are preoccupied with the question, ‘How to start a fundraiser over websites?’ Fundraisers often ponder over the right means of starting a fundraiser over websites like Kickstarter.We present some tips and ways to start a fundraiser over online platforms provided by websites like Kickstarter.

Tips and ways to launch a fundraiser over websites like Kickstarter

Some very helpful tips and ways to start a fundraiser over websites like Kickstarter, to be adopted by fundraisers for generating maximised funds for a cause are described below.

  1. Research the idea: Not every idea intended at generating funds can be or should be launched over websites like Kickstarter. A fundraiser should do a good amount of research about previously launched and successful fundraising ideas on the website. This would help a fundraiser draw a clear picture about what steps to follow and what steps to reject before formally launching the project in order to avoid a mess.
  2. Goals and targets: Every fundraiser, before the launch of a fundraising idea should clearly set in mind clear goals and targets to achieve from a fundraising idea. An idea to pursue aimed at generating funds for a cause over websites like Kickstarter, should only be pursued to achieve fruitful results and aimed at maximising the amount of funds raised. Any idea wherein funds raised are lesser should be summarily rejected. Any fundraiser which demands larger inputs both in terms of effort and manpower or monetary measures should again be avoided in order to achieve higher returns on inputs and maximise profits altogether.
  3. Popularising: The platforms provided by websites like this can be utilised to popularise an idea of fundraising. Efforts should be made on behalf of fundraisers to make an idea popular by making a lucrative presentation of the same before launching. A lucrative presentation in all likelihood makes a fundraising idea easily attractive for investors and fundraisers and makes the idea easily separable from the rest of the lot.

These are few of the tips and ways to effectively start a new fundraising idea over websites like Kickstarter by fundraisers to help them gain more and maximise the amount of funds raised for a cause.

crowdfunding websites

Fundraising for a Cause and the role of crowdfunding websites in it.

When it comes to helping a cause, the name Non-Profit organization is the first which comes to your mind. It is well known to us that a good NGO devoted for a particular cause would leave no stone unturned to help realize a cause- be it in terms of financial assistance or any other assistance. However, when it comes to gathering funds for the cause, crowdfunding websites play an important role.

Other than NGO operation, fundraising for a cause can also be for a personal cause of illness, or need. However, common to both can be a crowdfund facilitated via crowdfunding websites.

Fundraising for a cause demands the person to get emotionally attached to the cause for all positive reasons. Let’s have a look at the common aspects of accumulating funds for a cause, both individual and for an organization, more precisely with the involvement of crowdfunding websites

Preparation for the fundraising

As an individual it is you who has to decide whether you want to work for the cause or not, but in order to gather funds for a non-profit organization, discussion with the organization on the course to be followed while fundraising is important. The course includes everything from the fundraising ideas, staff involved, inclusion of crowdfunding websites and the procedure followed for the transference of funds. Another important aspect is the taxation involved on the collected sum. Last but not the least, whether it is an individual cause or NGO, it is important to keep a written record of all the processes and funds involved.

Formulation of core plan

The core fundraising plan is the part on which you have to sweat the most. From coming up with a fundraising idea to giving it a proper track, gathering resources and advertising for the day everything requires both your mental and physical hard work. Your fundraising plan should be planned with preparations of public survey such that it connects to the masses, resulting in making the most out of your effort. It should be further kept in mind that if the next is enacted then personnel from crowdfunding websites can also help in making the core plan

Involvement of crowdfunding websites

To make your ‘fundraising for the cause’ a success to the fullest, it is important to attach the idea with crowdfunding websites. The crowdfunding websites offer your fundraising plan an elevated platform which helps it to garner more popularity amongst the masses, thereby, generating fund for your cause like never before.

Motivation for the fundraising

Above all mentioned aspects, is the motivational conscience for the cause. Belief in your cause is the inspiration behind the whole setup of ‘fundraising for a cause’. In the course of fundraising you could take help from external agents like crowdfunding websites, but the successful accumulation of crowdfund in the whole process defines how closely you feel for the cause and how far would you go to see it flourish?

A successful fundraising brings to light a person’s innate qualities that he can bring positive changes to the society, he can or cannot take the help of crowdfunding websites in this process An individual, accomplished in fundraising for a cause can think of taking a step forward by setting up a NGO for a cause for which he feels from the core of his heart.

He is a gentle soul who spends self for the sake of others, and it is crowdfunding websites which assist him in raising the count of his good deeds.

MyEFunder.com

Choosing the Right Crowdfunding Site

Choosing the Right Crowdfunding Site

Are you planning to start a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for your cause, upcoming project or convert your concept into a real product? It can be a difficult and sometimes very frustrating to chose the right crowdfunding website because not all crowdfunding websites are created equally. Some of these websites are categorized as “general” where you can raise money for any type of project including asking for donations like you can do on MyEFunder, Indiegog, RocketHub and StartsSomeGood etc. Where there are many websites which are limited to specific types of projects like Appbackr which is designed to raise money for software application design projects etc. So how do you decide which crowdfunding website would be best for you and help you raise the maximum funds.

The following are different ways to choose the right crowdfunding website. This will not just increase your chances to make your campaign successful it will also give the most effective results, for example fan following, product promotion and less fee, to name a few.

Know your project or cause:

The first thing before you start searching a crowdfunding website, you need to know about your project or cause. Is it a local based project or you want to raise money from all part of the world? What type of people would get benefits from it? What is your target market? This will help you to decide the type of crowdfunding website would be best for you.

Know crowdfunding websites

Search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo will list of many crowdfunding websites. Visiting all of these sites and learning their terms and condition, their process to pay out funds and how to start campaign can take lot of time but this step is necessary and important. If not, you may end up choosing the wrong crowdfunding platform for your project or cause, which might be the most popular site but not the best place for your crowdfunding campaign. It is a very time consuming process to evaluate each and every crowdfunding website but well worth it. To make it easy for you, we have listed the following basic information about some of the top crowdfunding websites:

  • MyEFunder.com: Personal causes and any project including both creative and non-creative, equity crowdfunding, micro peer-to-peer lending, and real estate crowdsourcing. Both US and International Crowdfunding. MyEFunder is free to sign up, free to start a campaign and does not charge a fee for it’s services. In addition to being very user friendly and easy to promote and maintain.
  • Kickstarter: Only for creative projects and you must be based in Unites States.
  • Indiegogo: You can start any type of project here including charity and donation.
  • RocketHub: Open to all projects but new ideas are most appreciated.
  • StartSomeGood: Website for international users which is opened for any kind of project.
  • Lucky Ant: Open to all hyper-local projects; must be locally based.
  • Appbackr: Only software and application related projects accepted.
  • Wefunder: If you are looking for equity funds, then Wefunder is ideal for you.
  • NewJelly: A special crowdfunding website to promote artists around the world
  • Cofolio: Looking funds for small business? Cofolio help to raise money for small business.
  • Peerbackers: A crowdfunding site for entrepreneurs “and their dreams”.

Explore crowdfunding website:

Once you know about the different websites, the next step is to rank them on the bases of their features, options, fee and business model structure etc. Explore similar projects and what types of projects got the most funding on these websites. You may have your own criteria to rank each of these website. You will also find blogs and commentary about the sites out there that can provide you with some guidance and insight.

Top Crowdfunding Platforms for Projects

What are the Top Crowdfunding Platforms for Projects?

In short, they are all good.  It just depends what you are looking for and what you are trying to get funded.

How exactly does crowdfunding help to carry out projects?

Are you one of those people who had an excellent idea for a new business, but had to give up on it because of financial problems? Funding for projects is the most crucial step. ‘To make money, you need to have money’ is the ubiquitous belief in the business enterprise. But there is good news for you, in case you are worried about where to find investments. Crowd funding platforms through the internet have become the unanimous solutions to small business owners everywhere now.

Here is what you need to know first. They are platforms to fund your business. There are many such portals out in the world today. For instance, kickstarter is one such successful portal that has stood by many small ventures, carving their way to great accomplishments. Crowd sourcing is a way to get money, but not without hard work and persistent passion. Even if it takes a long time and many attempts to finally complete the project, you should have the perseverance to do it. Ultimately, it’s your hard work, confidence and strong belief that will drive the whole venture.

How it works?

You must be familiar with the idea of passing the plate around in a church gathering. The concept of crowdfunding is the same. Many other people who believe in your idea come together and pool out their resources for this cause. Sometimes, the result of these generous donations can be staggering, amounting to over hundreds of thousands dollars even when the aim had been just in the tens of thousands. However, it’s unfortunate that a few projects not at all get funded. They are the best examples as to what changes hard work can bring in.

If you think that putting up your project on a famous crowdfunding website amongst so many out there like indiegogo and http://myefunder.com, will automatically drive people to invest in it, you are hugely mistaken. You will have to drive the search traffic of the site to your project. You require creative crowd funding ideas. So, you need to sit down and draw a complete plan of your activities. Make use of various social networks to spread the word about your project. You can tag pictures, videos and surveys explaining why the project is bound to be a success. Concentrate on different angles of the project which will draw interest. So, go crowd sourcing and make yourself a success story.

5 Things to Remember While Building a Crowdfunding Profile

5 Things to Remember While Building a Crowdfunding Profile

Crowdfunding is a method of raising funds for any business, venture or project. It is regarded as an alternative way of financing small and even big projects. Today, you can find tons of online fundraising sites such as Kick Starter and Indiegogo that allow you to make marketing pitch for your own project. You have to keep the following 5 things in mind when you are creating a profile on any of the crowd-funding websites.

Pick a simple layout

First of all, you have to choose a layout with a simple design. Look for one that comprises of a basic header, footer, sidebar and main content section. If needed, more elements can be added later. Add an interesting title to your own crowdfunding profile. To ensure consistency, give the title of your fundraising pitch the same as your project. You should introduce this title into your header section.

Give a short, but proper tagline

It is also important that you write a short tag line. Introduce it under the title of the crowd funding page of your fundraising website. This tagline should simply be a description of your project in only a phrase, but should be interesting enough to catch the attention of readers. In the main content section, you can make the description lengthier. Try to make it a powerful and attention-grabbing.

Do not forget the Action Step

The Action Step is nothing but urging your readers to make monetary contributions for your crowd funding project. No matter which fundraising website you use, you need to make every step easy for your potential backers; informing them about the links they should click on, the sites to visit and how they can contact you.

Mention the rewards

Inform them on the crowd funding page about the list of rewards that you have, with the bigger rewards for the bigger donation amount. Your rewards can comprise of simple to more detailed gifts, such as tees, key-chains, coffee mugs and pens. Once your fundraising comes to a successful end, you need to spring into action immediately and spend some money on buying and delivering the gifts to your contributors.

Specify a deadline

On online fundraising sites, such as Indiegogo and KickStarter, you will find people specifying a fundraising goal and the deadline to fund a project. Keep your project expenses in mind as well as the potential value of your networks. You should adjust the goals of your project as you need and set a deadline that will make your contributors understand the urgency of the campaign.

Keywords: Crowdfunding, crowd funding, Kick Starter, Indiegogo, fundraising website, online fundraising sites

Kickstarter, Indiegogo or MyEFunder

Kickstarter or Indiegogo – Which One Should You Go With for Crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding has become extremely popular with new entrepreneurs, especially in these tough economic times when it has become tougher to gather funds for even small investments. Luckily, there are crowdfunding websites available today that have been set up to provide entrepreneurs and potential investors with the ideal launchpad to release their products or establish their ventures. Kickstarter and Indiegogo are two of the best crowdfunding sites out there which promote crowd-funding that is donation-based. There is a long-standing debate on which one is the better site, and the following points can be helpful for you to know which one you should go for.

Acceptance of Projects

Kickstarter only finances projects that are creative in nature, such as videos, music, films, journalism, comics, stage shows etc. On the other hand, Indiegogo does not have any preferences with the projects. It accepts every type of project without any type of restriction. It offers a lot of flexibility in terms of accepting and releasing various project ideas.

Project Fees

Kick Starter tends to charge a fee of 5% for projects which receive funds successfully. But entrepreneurs do not get anything in case their funding fails to meet the specified limit by even a few bucks. Indie Go Go charges a fee of 4% for projects which receive funds successfully and a higher fee of 9% for those that fail to meet the limit.

All or nothing model

Kick Starter maintains it security by following an ‘all or nothing’ business model. This means you cannot get any funds if you fail to meet the deadline. But Indie Go Go proves to be of the best crowdfunding sites as it does not follow such a model. Although this measure bypasses the urgency to gather funds, it proves to be useful in some cases.

Success rate

Of the two crowdfunding websites, Kick Starter enjoys a higher success rate of around 43%. But it has less total number of campaigns, slightly more than 46,000. Indiegogo has a reported success rate of about 10% but it has more than 92,000 campaigns due to its flexible policies in project funding.

User Traffic

Kickstarter has better traffic and more number of users than Indie Go Go. The moderate user traffic of the latter is believed to be a result of its financing strategies.

Considered from varied angles, Kickstarter seems to be more dependable, secure and popular. However, Indiegogo is also beneficial due to its better strategies, features, special algorithms and easier accessibility across the globe.

Keywords: Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Crowdfunding, crowdfunding websites, best crowdfunding sites

Kickstarter

What is Kickstarter – How Does It Help Entrepreneurs?

It is said that big dreams come at a cost, and if you are an entrepreneur you must have realized that too well by now. Getting your dream projects off the ground is not easy, unless you have proper funding for the same. Crowdfunding is a relatively new way of gathering funds for projects that require high amount of investment. One of the best and biggest websites for crowdfunding, Kickstarter offers excellent help on creating successful campaigns.

What is Kick Starter?

Kickstarter is actually one of the biggest and most popular crowdfunding sites. It was launched in the US in the year 2009 and is now also available in the UK. It has around 381 m USD in pledges and boasts of a 43.5% rate of success. This is a rewards-based platform without any investors. It only has donors or backers. Financial donations to various projects are awarded here with things like tees, movie credits and more. Advanced copies of games are also sometimes handed over to backers.

Main Features of Kick Starter

In Kickstarter, projects are submitted to be approved. As much as 75% of the projects are found to be accepted. The time for turnaround is around a couple of days. It also comes with a unique “All or Nothing Pledging” system in which entrepreneurs do not receive the funds if they do not reach their objectives.

The projects that are submitted need to fit into any of the thirteen creative categories specified on the website. This is one of those crowdfunding sites which are only dedicated to projects. It demands a plan for manufacturing and needs a prototype.

All the awards are restricted to single items, which can be in the price range of 1 – 5,000 pounds as far as UK projects are concerned. On an average, most of the successful projects in the US raise 10,000 USD. An average of 71 USD is pledged per person.

Is Kick Starter the Only Crowd-Funding Site?

Where crowdfunding sites go, Kickstarter is certainly one of the biggest. However, it is not the only one. You can find similar sites such as Indiegogo and RocketHub which have also become global. However, Kickstarter is one of the sites with the maximum media exposure – something that Indiegogo and RocketHub do not have. This helps entrepreneurs and start-ups to get backers and donors easily for their projects. There have been some landmark campaigns on this site, which include Tim Schafer’s Double Fine that have seen as much as 3 million USD to be pledged. There was also the Pebble e-Paper Watch campaign where a staggering sum of 10 million USD has been pledged.

Keywords: Kickstarter, Crowdfunding, crowdfunding sites, Indiegogo, RocketHub

Gofundme

How to Use Gofundme for Raising Funds?

Since the recession, getting money for the initial investment has become harder for small businesses and private entrepreneurs without big money for support. This has led to the birth of crowd funding, a phenomenon that has become more popular in the US after it was directly mentioned in the JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act which aims at supporting funding of small businesses in the US by relaxing the security regulations. If you have a small business project that is relatively personal but need external backing nonetheless, GoFundMe is the perfect crowdfunding platform to go for.

What is Go Fund Me?

It is an online crowdfunding platform, similar to other online fundraising sites such as Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, and has been helping Americans all over the nation successfully raise funds for their business. If you have the power to move the crowd, you will be able to get donations for about any type of project. It comes with sensible fees and offers the scope to have your project get more visibility on the social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus.

What Can Go Fund Me Be Used For?

This platform for crowd funding can be used for raising funds for practically anything. It is one of the best ways to raise money, whether you are a private entrepreneur fresh out of a B school with a bright business idea or a young college student who is trying to gather money to complete his education. Even if you have a blog or website and need some funds to pay for your domain name and web hosting, you can get the registration fees covered with funds that you accumulate from the website.

How to Gather Funds on Go Fund Me?

You can use a wide variety of strategies and techniques to raise funds, as GoFundMe is undoubtedly one of the best ways to make money. Even more than other crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, the key here is to focus on higher visibility. Without taking the help of any paid online advertising services, you can simply rely on the social networking websites to promote yourself aggressively. Post frequently on MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus pages and upload high quality videos to your own channel on YouTube and add links to the posts on your own GoFundMe profile page. It is important to be patient, and you will begin to see success in a matter of a few weeks with persistence and smart endeavor.

Keyword: gofundme, crowd funding, crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, ways to raise money