I did a search first here on the boards to see if it has brought up before, but only in passing once or twice.

While browsing through a couple of news articles online recently, I've seen reference to the Kickstarter website, where people have raised funds to finance their projects - with quite a few projects having been fully funded via the website.

Not having fully investigated the site, have any of you or your preservation groups looked into funding your projects via the website? I'm not sure how big of a project you'd want to use the website for, but I think it is something worth investigating...

http://www.kickstarter.com/

Kickstarter, as I understand it, does not work with/for charities.

Another option out there is Indiegogo, most recently (and notoriously) used by Matthew Inman and his online comic The Oatmeal, to 1) raise an "in-your-face" flip of the bird to an extortionist attorney, trying to raise $20,000 which he promised to split between two charities (he managed instead to raise over $211,000!!)

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/funnyjunk_letter

(WARNING WARNING WARNING: The above link contains a couple obscenities and raunchy, crude images and may not be "safe for work"!!! You have been warned!!)

and 2) to raise money to acquire a property used as a lab by scientist Nikola Tesla:

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/tesla_museum

http://www.indiegogo.com/teslamuseum

(Nothing unsafe for work in the above expect a shock-value "g-dd-mn")

http://www.biography.com/bio-now/saving ... n-20945409

Now, let's look at some important features of the second fundraiser:

*Somebody pledged half the necessary funding for acquiring the property upfront. Lovely challenge grant. Worked like a charm. I sure wouldn't have donated if that hadn't been there.
*Inman was basically willing to "sell out" in spades:

TWO folks/companies/whatever took him up on this. Not one, two. Potential tax write off PLUS unique, attention-getting marketing among a loyal, enthusiastic, almost "cult-like" fan base.
*More importantly, this is a project with limited, but nationwide, nay, international appeal. $3 from Nebraska, $10 from someone in Arizona, $10 from Michigan, $100 from some ham radio guy in Texas, $50 from someone in Maryland, £100 from Britain, a bunch of Euros from Serbia, maybe $1,000 from some technical magazine, $3,333 from some electronics company that can issue a press release and garner some good PR out of it......

Does rail preservation have a project with this kind of appeal? Maybe a few. Say, a pass of the electronic hat to finish restoration of one of the Alco PAs. Maybe the UP Big Boy pipe dream, but I'm not going to start that without a pledge from UP to let it run. East Broad Top? The replica NYC Hudson or whatever?
The prerequisites for success for such a project would be 1) a firm commitment for a place to see the finished project operate, provide rides, or otherwise be preserved (no more "ready to run and no place to go"); 2) a challenge grant of 1/3 to 1/2 of the estimated cost to give hope that the project would see completion; 3) nationwide appeal, with a hope that some donor far afield would eventually get to enjoy the finished project (you're not going to get many dollars from New England for a SP steamer, or much from Texas for a B&M steamer). Perhaps an appeal to save any of the last Amtrak Heritage cars or an AEM7?
Most of the projects that we could conceive will fail the above checklist. In addition, we want to be careful not to overuse this valuable tool, lest it become the next "PBS Pledge/Beg-a-Thon" cliche. We are already, collectively as a nation, beginning to weary of the next "Pepsi Challenge" round of e-mails and Facebook posts begging support for a favored project. If you pursue this, use it selectively and for one-off projects with niche, but widespread, appeal.

It also doesn't hurt to have an online comic with a warped sense of humor.

Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, GoFundMe and a host of other similar services are called "crowd funding" in that they allow anyone to raise money for just about anything and potentially reach a global audience. Here at the Trolley Museum of New York I just opened a campaign on GoFundMe (which supports 501-c-3 charities; not all do). Ever since I've been tweeting and facebooking trying to draw attention to it, but I guess our audience is still too small. It still isn't quite a "build it and they will come" model--you have to work to get attention and inspire donations. I'm sure it would help to have a well-produced, informational video attached to it, which we don't have yet, but we're working on creating one.

In addition to railway preservation I am quite active as a skating referee for women's roller derby. The league I am head ref is a non-profit and recently embarked on a major fund-raising effort to purchase a portable skating floor. They did extensive research into all of the major online fundraising websites and found http://www.fundrazr.com to be the best for their purpose. I think they did not choose Kickstarter because of the rigid timeline/deadlines. We are in a new digital world that offers more than we could ever imagine just a few short years ago. This is one of the areas where we can all help each other as we head down the digital road of 2012.