
The Creative Fund Launches to Back Every Project on Kickstarter - rosanna
https://medium.com/@thecreativefund/the-creative-fund-launches-to-back-every-single-project-on-kickstarter-33ac29affdf6
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Deimorz
I'm sorry, but this idea really doesn't make any sense to me. $1 on every
project doesn't make any meaningful difference--every project that would have
failed without it will still fail, and every project that would have succeeded
will still succeed. Your contributions have zero impact if you do it this way.

If you instead looked for promising projects that _would_ fail without your
~$2000 contribution and "save" them, you really could make a huge difference.

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mbs348
You would be surprised at some of the messages we get. Actually heartfelt
responses of folks saying that getting this first pledge pushed them over the
edge to push harder. I'm excited that if we get to a point where the funds
might be even $5 or $20 per project, that CAN be a material difference to lots
of cool projects. Projects don't need even $1000 goals to be compelling.

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Deimorz
I'm sure that it's encouraging to people, but in the end it's very unlikely to
change any outcomes. If the project is going to succeed, someone else would
have made that first pledge, and the same effect would have happened. It
_feels_ impactful from your end because you're getting involved in so many
projects (and getting a lot of thank-you messages), but if all the same
projects succeed and fail you haven't actually affected anything.

It's probably also worth mentioning that small pledges (especially $1 ones)
are the least efficient in terms of how much of the pledge is lost to fees. A
$1 pledge on Kickstarter loses 15% to fees. This is made even worse by having
the money come via Patreon, where a similar chunk is lost. So if someone
pledges $1/month on Patreon to you, this will end up with a project creator
only receiving about 70 cents of it.

I don't mean to be too cynical, it's a great thing to do. I just think it's
worth considering if this is really the best approach, or if you could change
your method a bit and make more of an impact with the effort and money you're
devoting to it.

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erlend_sh
Why donate to this, paying 10% to Patreon and possibly an unknown percentage
to cover The Creative Fund’s overhead (if not, how will the project sustain
itself?) as opposed to giving directly to the projects that deserve it most?

A much more interesting model for me would be something like a “last 20%”
backer. Let users vote on campaigns that have 20% and and only a few days to
go, looking very likely to fail. Winners get funded by The Creative Fund
(provided its within a certain max funding threshold).

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Sir_Cmpwn
I don't mean to be a downer here... but what impact does this project
realistically hope to have? A dollar spread that thinly might as well be
nothing.

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iamryo
We're still learning, but so far we've had overwhelmingly positive feedback
from folks that feel encouraged by our pledges. We're also working to raise
more funds so we can increase the amount of each pledge. It's in the article,
but 100% of the funds we raise on Patreon will go towards that goal.

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Sir_Cmpwn
So the goal is to pat people on the back with token amounts of money? Well,
it's not my money...

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mbs348
As we mention in the article, a lot of it IS about the token statement, and we
have thousands of KS messages at least of grateful folks supporting. Do you
value your $1 supporters on Patreon? Do they have a material benefit for you?

If we figured out how to make the fund work for Patreon, how would you feel?

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Sir_Cmpwn
I do value my $1 supporters on Patreon - emotionally because they chose to
support my work in particular rather than the mindless shotgun approach, and
financially because there are 46 of them.

If this project raises enough to give $46 to every project, they'll need
$92,000 by their own reckoning and will still be giving little more than a
vapid pittance to each. Can you really not think of something better to do
with 92 grand?

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mbs348
*47 now

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mbs348
(can't reply to your latest comment directly)

I legit shared your most recent blog post " Simple, correct, fast: in that
order" to our dev #goodreads slack channel on Monday, so go figure.

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mbs348
Happy to answer any questions! This was a fun project to start, and we have
lots of crazy ideas how we might make this even more fun (ie Patreon people
above a certain level automatically get filled out to get rewards, etc etc)

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mabynogy
Some projects on Kickstarter are bad and even harmful and shouldn't be helped.

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mbs348
Great point. We do outline that we reserve the right not to support certain
projects per our guidelines: [https://thecreative.fund/participation-
guidelines](https://thecreative.fund/participation-guidelines)

Also, Kickstarter does a great job keeping the project quality to the point of
staying in ultra murky territory, which we are very appreciative.

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jbob2000
Is this really an effective way to fund projects? What are all these projects
going to do with $1? Wouldn't it be better to give 1 very promising project
$2,000?

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mbs348
$1 can be an inspiring start that gets folks to promote their project and get
up and get going. It is a bit more about the principle, like a high five to
get up and get going.

Also part of the experiment is the Patreon. Every $1,000 we may or may not
raise means we can up the amount by ~$1, every month. So that means as an
individual, you can pledge ~$12/year and say you contributed to every project
on Kickstarter that year.

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sbr464
A dollar is not a meaningful contribution. It would be better to make a 20-100
list and give 500-2k. Else is it really a Fund?

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sbr464
Or better yet, fund a sweeping amount to their minimum goal level, either by
votes or without notice.

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mbs348
if our patron list grows, it could be this big! Good things start small.

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sbr464
Do they?

