Government money is not easy to shake loose. I might give up on this one since I feel sick reading through all the material. I thought I had a creative idea about teaching, now frustrated and pressed against deadline, I'm thinking why should I have to go through all this crap just to get my idea wrapped inside scholastic crap to be viewed by these experts. I think being mediocre is much easier for me. No need to try so hard to be good unless I want to open my own pocket to fund this.
No one has tried my idea so how am I supposed to find prior success?! National average of relative gain of a semester of college physics is 20%. If that's called success, I'd just give a multiple choice final exam and give up on my students.
focalist, I think there's probably no real expert in the kickstarter team in any field except for some code geeks. If they pick burning man (whatever it is, kids party?!) over your charity project they've showed they have no interest in charity. Hiring an expert to review stuff is not cheap. Every business is in for the money. I hope you find funding elsewhere maybe at a charity (don't stop trying government money either but just don't hope too high). You have a noble cause, someone with money will eventually recognize your cause I hope. Sometimes associating yourself with a college instructor may get you some access to funds in universities for such activity. I've sat on a couple of these funding committees in my university and gosh I should be paid extra to read some of those craps that we ended up funding or awarding. Give it a try, contact a local school's art/sociology/etc. department to see if there's interest. You get student assistants too (maybe a photographer in training but better than paying a real one) so you just have to hire a nurse.
Well, it was quite some time ago, and changed my goals a bit more since then also. In addition, I have had to deal with some additional medical issues, not the least of which are spinal issues which have severely restricted me physically. I simply would not be able to do it physically at the moment. I'm too muddled from meds if I take enough to stand or walk for a reasonable period of time- I don't feel right taking that level of responsibility on that level of meds. I have instead taken to doing local stage and arts council photography, as well as local events, when I can. The core of my "work" is enjoying what I am doing and having others enjoy it. I can't ever let my photography become something that causes me stress. I will stop doing it completely before I'll allow it to become something that only makes me sicker...
Enough bitching out of me though.
Back to the topic of the OP.. Kickstarter does seem to have some success stories, and some very confusing ones too. I can't reject them out of hand completely.. I just have a beef with their selection criteria, at least as pertains to works of 'Art'.
Crowdsourcing in my mind isn't all that different than a corporation issuing stock to fund expansion, or munipalities issuing bonds to raise money for public works projects. I do wonder how they get around that legally, I mean in all intents as far as I can see, it's just an end run around doing the stock and corporation thing. I just wonder how the investors react when a project fails to come to fruition.. An all too common result of any R&D effort. For every success, there's as many failures I am sure.. It is a very interesting concept to be sure...
From what I can see ninjablocks appears to be based in San Fransisco, even if on paper only, which would allow them to obtain an EIN. There are also specific rules in the eligibilty facts pertaining to how to meet the requirements if your are not in the US. Read this article from another kickstarter on how they did it, http://www.elizemorgan.com/2012/05/anatomy-of-kickstarter-campaign-manual.html
So in the end it is not impossible, just have to be creative or know/trust some one in the US.
Kickstarter has worked well for me also. The selection process is two fold, they have to approve your project and they have to approve your rewards. I had a difficult time coming up with "acceptable" awards per their guidelines. Since they use Amazon as their payment gateway, they rely heavily on their requirements. Other than that, the whole process has been pretty smooth. We'll see how the rest goes in 5 days when my listing ends though.
thats where they could land into trouble, by getting in the mix and putting a seal of approval on a project along with its rewards, they are backing an item
what happens when that item turns out to be a flake or a scam, while also being major, like some million dollar item over thousands of people?
Osgeld:
thats where they could land into trouble, by getting in the mix and putting a seal of approval on a project along with its rewards, they are backing an item
what happens when that item turns out to be a flake or a scam, while also being major, like some million dollar item over thousands of people?
It wasn't so much as a seal of approval in terms of liking the rewards, it was more of a compliance issue. They had two issues with my rewards 1. The reward can't be a commercial item that you would normally buy in a store. They were under the impression that some of my rewards were not made by me. Once I explained it to them they were fine with it. 2. Apparently you can't have any rewards that are "gambling" related. I had a reward contest in the works but they wouldn't allow it.
for example, Craigslist they dont back up their ads by a pier review, and I cant really blame them if I show up to some dude's house and the desk is already sold, kickstarter on the other hand reviews projects and rewards and deems them to be an acceptable thing.
I invest, and it turns out to be bunk or a scam? well it was approved by a company to be an acceptable risk to them, I on the other hand never received a risk analysis or any of the other "good stuff" that comes with putting money into an investment. For all intensive reason I have bought a future product though kickstarter, not an investment. Its not really my problem or concern that their risk did not pan out, I bought a future product as advertised... see how this could go skunk if hit hard enough?
They just need to be less involved, like craigslist, if they put their seal of approval on something, then they could be held accountable
