I do not know how many of you have visited kickstarter.com but it seems to me this is becoming a very successful way to fund anyone's idea's in all or nothing fashion. Its has me thinking about the future of Steam, Railroad buildings, passenger cars, first generation diesels and just our industry in general.

It seems the way of raising money through a non-profit or train ride is becoming old school or the hard way of doing business. I can't help but think our way is not resonating with the general public or even energized us (railway preservationist) to open our wallets to a project.

I can't help but look through the kickstarter site and see thousands of dollars being poured into films, technology and many other items and I keep asking why can't we go this route as a group? It seems a shame to me that we can't come together as a group and fund a specific project or projects out there.

Every month when I get my train related magazines and have talked to the advertisement departments about there readership numbers it make wonder how can I engage the readership to help fund a project to make it successful.

I know with Trains there is over 95,000 people or more who subscribe to the magazine. Just think if you could get 10% of them to donate to a railway project with only 10 bucks can leave a 95,000 dollar impression on a organization or finish out that railway passenger car or give a good start to a building project.

So I guess the question I'm asking is if a site such as kickstarter was started for just the railway side of the house do you think you would become a supporter of a project?

Why does it seem we can subscribe to the trade magazine but can't see to give money for the next locomotive, passenger car or save the local railway building?

Now its your turn....Go!

Our Museum just completed a small campaign using Power2Give - a variation on kickstarter. I publicized it here and our members spread the word. We managed to reach 99% our goal of $4480 for a car repair. Unfortunately funds came mostly from the usual pool of suspects making larger donations of $100+ with only a few outside small gifts.

http://power2give.org/MontgomeryCountyMD/Project/Detail?projectId=1933

http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=35135&p=197309&hilit=power2give#p197309

We're trying again with a small campaign to pay for a shop vac.

Wesley

I financed my Eagle Scout project, which was at a station, using a pizza fundraiser lol. People love food.

In a recent thread I challenged people to post reasons why our projects are important and worthy of being supported by people who don't share our passion. I got a couple responses only.........so until we are capable of articulating that, I don't think we are capable of any broad based funding based on popularity and social media for any other than small projects as Wes has explained.

dave

It seems that there is a new kickstarter for something every other day, and they all become background noise in social networking.

Right idea, wrong site. Kickstarter is a lose, because right off the bat they don't support 501(c)(3) and that means they're Right Out if you're a nonprofit. Also, they only accept projects in fairly narrow classifications, and I've never been able to "slot" a railway preservation project into any of them. They can get away with that kind of hostility because we are not their customers, we are their vendors and they have more banging on their door than they can handle. (Groupon, similar dynamic.)

Indiegogo.com is the best alternative IMO, they take a much more open approach and specifically do support nonprofits.

Gofundme.com also supports non-profits and allows the donor to Facebook and/or Tweet their participation to help create 'buzz'. We tried a campaign there about 2 years ago, but it was a flop. Just not able to create big enough of an audience to get people to click the donate button; we didn't have enough 'buzz'.

New England Steam has a crowd funding site up and running tonight!

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/new-e ... orporation

Please spread this around, if you would. It's another way of supporting the rescue and restoration of Maine Central 470. We are requesting that you spread the url to every social media site, and platform of which you can think. It's not our main source of of funding, but it's a great place to gain momentum.

"Buzz" must be the key to the successful crowd funding drives. There seems to be lots of money for all kinds of drives out there looking over the success story's. Many (most) seem obscure to me. So how do they garner such a response? What are the keys to creating a buzz? There must be more media than the internet involved.....what can link people into a particular drive and how is it done in a relatively short time?
I suppose this is all a guarded secret.....but worthy of discussion!

Bob D.

The internet / social media will do it, but you need to have connections. It's really all about your friends and fans. You can't make it as a lone wolf. Bottom line, people give money because they know you. Social media is better at getting in front of them, and connecting you with supporters you may not have realized you had.