Funding Ideas

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Grants

• Burning man projects, Black Rock Arts
  • Awesome opportunity to meld arts and the sciences, for fun, but also to communicate and make scientific knowledge accessible.

Crowd-funding

Most Important things for a Project

1. Pitch video
   • Depends on what you're doing, but it needs to be clean.
   • "Cool" cause buzz, maybe viral marketing. Present images of the kind of thing going on.
     • We host events, doing things that would show up in the space.
2. Media ready, e.g. photos, logos, external website, social media, press release, blog roll.
   • Work the connections, reddit, techcrunch, boingboing, gizmodo.
3. Setting a goal, and an accurate budget. More about being clear.
   • If you reach your goal, you're likely to exceed it 31%, shoot a bit lower!
4. People need to like your cause, they can be involved and feel like they supported something substantial.
5. Need some seeders, even encouraged!
6. Gauge your goals based on your network, and how big it is.
   • Build heuristics for how much you can get (e.g. $40 / person).
   • Average is $75
7. Need to have good perks (read ideas below)
   • $25, $100 are the most important price points, in that order.
8. Keep posting media after campaign launches --> you earn 81% more money!
9. If you're working with a team, you raise 80% more money.

Perk Ideas

• Sponsor a square-foot-month (actually write their names on the square feet)!
  • e.g. $25 gets you a 1 sq. ft. for 6 mo.
• Groups using the space for meetings, a big amount!

Links

• http://kickstarter.com/
• http://indiegogo.com/

Fundraising

The main concept here is to get the word out, publicize, find opportunities for major support, while also bringing in a bit of money for the space. Should be fun, fairly easy, valuable to supporters and above all: do-able.

Item Ideas

• Some useful little gadget
• Stickers
  • "Hacking is Not a Crime"
  • "This Machine Kills Fascists"
  • Official seal / support sticker (e.g. like "police support" stickers that get you out of traffic tickets)

Service Ideas

• Some sort of web hosting / application service.
• Something cute like a "free consultation"
• Personalize services to a range of skills members have.