With the recent Kickstarter campaign for the T1 trust starting off so well, I am curious what other museums have done and what has worked. (They raised nearly $5500 in 12 hours toward 20,000 goal)

I did a couple searches on KickStarter, gofundme and another site and only found a handfull of railroad related crowdfunding campaigns. Most were for a particular car or a depot. Most were not successful and none raised any real money.

My questions is this, can anyone give examples of ones that succeeded and why more museums are not using this platform? I am intrigued by it and see it working so well for other people, why not to restore railroad equipment?

Here is a link to the Kickstarter campaign that got me thinking
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/t1trust/lets-get-rolling

Thanks,
Ted

Last September, the Silverton Northern Interpretive Center Phase 1 project was successfully crowdfunded using the Main Street Crowd dot com website: MainStreetCrowd.com: SNRR Interpretive Center Ph. 1

Here's a thread about that fundraising campaign: Narrow Gauge Discussion Forum - Silverton Northern Interpretive Center

Unfortunately, creating a crowdfunding campaign does not quite follow the 'build it and they will come' model. Once you've created a campaign, you have to get it in front of as many people as possible and make the appeal strong enough that people open their purse strings. My organization has tried a few times and hasn't raised any money to speak of because we failed on both accounts: didn't get it in front of enough faces; didn't create sufficient appeal. But we have two board members who have media and/or video producing experience, so I'm trying to pin them down to commit to help create compelling videos to attach to our funding campaigns.

At National Capital Trolley Museum (NCTM) we have been successfully using Power2Give for crowdfunding. In 2014 we raised $10,554 to support four projects. Of the $10,554, Museum members contributed $7,036 and the balance of $3,518 was contributed through matching funds provided by the County Government through the Arts and Humanities Council at a rate of 50 cents on the dollar.

The four projects ranged from $1,830 to $6,818. A majority of the contributed revenue came from Museum members. We have not had much success inspiring our visitors to donate. All donations must be made online using the Power2Give website.

In late 2010 the Arts & Science Council of Charlotte-Mecklenburg began development of power2give.org, a groundbreaking new website designed to address changing trends in philanthropic giving. ASC, located in Charlotte, North Carolina, is a non-profit whose mission is to build appreciation, participation and support for the arts, science, history and heritage in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County (AHCMC) purchased a regional license for power2give from ASC through a National Endowment for the Arts grant. This license makes power2give available for cultural non-profits in Montgomery County. The Montgomery County site is administered by AHCMC.

For most of the duration of the license, AHCMC has tried to offer matching funds. Initially there was a $1 for $1 match from community business. Recently the match has been 50 cents for every dollar donated.

As noted the program has been successful for us. We have kept projects "affordable" in order to maintain momentum and maximize the match. Based on the results, the P2G program has motivated our members and friends to financially support the Museum on a regular basis.


Wesley

The option we took was to open a PayPal account and solicit donations through our web page with a link for the PayPal contributions. For a non profit the fees are reasonable and I have found it easy to use, both as a donor and administrator. I looked at a crowdfunding site and my recollection was that the fees were higher.

Aside from your other points, there's also the issue of saturation. There are simply SO many people asking for money online, it's now like driving downtown in more permissive towns where there's a guy/gal on every street corner with a pitiful/attempt at humor sign asking for money. After a few times, you get blind to them. And it's very common in places where you wouldn't expect, for commercial ventures like art-related projects:

Coupled with all the people who simply want money because they don't wanna work for it and others who think you should pony up money for them to start a business model (something that used to only be done through commercial investments), I think the message is getting lost in an awful lot of static.
For this to work you MUST have something people care about, a constant communication stream (hint: don't do it all on facebook) and you need to give people something tangible for their money as well. And you can't do it too many times.
The first (and so far only) time I ever donated money to one of these campaigns was for the movement of the Space Shuttle landing aircraft to the grounds of Space Camp in Huntsville. http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-030714a-shuttle-training-aircraft-spacecamp.html http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-030714a-shuttle-training-aircraft-spacecamp.html
And they raised the money (and some extra) pretty quickly, from just a few hundred people.
How?
They'd never asked for money before, the project was different, one time only and for a one-of-a-kind object, for a group that has a good track record for preservation and a good facility. And the more you donated, you could get some pretty cool (and not much money to make) swag, like patches, stickers, shirts and the like.
You gotta spend money to make money. And you must show people why and keep in their minds along the way. Nobody's gonna give it to you for nothing.

Partly, there are so darned many crowdfunding sites. Almost every new project appears on a new crowdfunding site I've never heard of, and then I have to go "vet" it to make sure the site itself is not a scam.

And then there's no accountability whatsoever that assures the money is actually used for the designated purpose. "Mad money fever" seems to grip the sites. A lot of makers don't feel an obligation to actually do the project - and certainly any money OVER target is a mad-money. If a proper nonprofit asked for $20,000 to rebuild a grade crossing, and got $43,000, they'd have to use the other $23,000 on grade crossings. That's state law in 49 states.

And I'm concerned this "mad-money fever is going to grip nonprofits and cause them to forget all about their UPMIFA obligations.

> Gotta spend money to make money
No, that's what multi-level marketing salesmen tell their downlines. In this day and age, you can do a lot with nothin'.

Not sure how successful the T1 effort actually is. As of now there are 13 contributors about $5660 raised. But one contributor accounts for $5000 of that total, so the remains 12 are averaging about $50 each. Will take a lot of folks at that rate to hit $20k.

The "successful" crowdsourcing efforts I have seen all started out with a big fan base.

No, make that a MASSIVE fan base.

Here's what I consider the best example I've seen, in comparison with something like building a T1:

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/tesla_museum

Now, look at what he had:
*7 million visitors and 30 million unique page views a month.
*A quirky cult following, extremely popular with the young Internet audience.

Result:
In nine days, they surpassed a million dollars. http://theoatmeal.com/blog/tesla_museum_1m
Not enough? http://theoatmeal.com/blog/tesla_museum_update
Ultimately, they raised $1.3 million by the end, AND the property price was reduced, giving them the chance to buy the property for the matching grant: http://theoatmeal.com/blog/tesla_museum_saved
Next result: Elon Musk, of the Tesla auto company, stepped in himself, just as prompted by the first comic: http://theoatmeal.com/blog/musk_tesla_museum
Still at it: http://theoatmeal.com/blog/bricks_for_tesla

Current (Get it?): http://www.teslasciencecenter.org/

How well did this work? I know a successful computer business guy who has an advance order in for a Tesla, who said in part, "This kind of thing is part of why I'm doing it. I like where he's putting his money where his mouth is."

I have seen science fiction writers and fantasy artists start modest Kickstarter campaigns to raise funds for publication of high-quality anthologies of their work. The one, Larry Elmore (who is to the field somewhere about where we might put, say, Link, Steinheimer, Hastings, etc. as rail photographers), humbly tried to find $17,500 to fund the upfront costs of printing a "complete works" collection. He got just shy of $300,000 from about 2,100 people. The book is basically now two volumes, both double the size of what he had hoped one book would be, with deluxe and super-deluxe versions available. He's a year or so behind in finishing up all the "stretch goals," bonuses for various levels of donation (everything from an autograph to a "dragon doodle" with the autograph to color art prints to a personalized commission to a day spent with him and a studio tour, including a motorcycle ride).
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/14 ... re-artbook

Now, what do these guys have that we don't?
1) POPULARITY. You draw them with a great product. The Oatmeal, Matt Inman's web comic, is chock full of humor, attitude, and cojones, and it sells. He's up to published anthology #4, and by the standards of today, he's a Charles Schulz, a George Carlin, a Grand Canyon Railway of Internet humor. Similarly, Larry Elmore is "a god" of fantasy art, which is as obscure to most people as railfanning must be--but at least people have heard of Comic-Con and sci-fi conventions, if only for the stereotypes of costumed geekery run amok.
2) AN EFFECTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE. This takes truly savvy people, who have a great product, good marketing skills, and a real understanding of how social media works--and doesn't. I've seen one fantasy writer who seemed condemned to languish in obscurity after a movie of his "magnum opus" effectively screwed him out of any income from the cult-followed movie. A social-media presence of his fanbase, a decade or more later, eventually found him fans that were attorneys willing to work pro bono to rectify that situation, and although the litigation is still supposedly ongoing, at the moment he has rights to some control of the movie, has shut down pirates bootlegging the movie, and has grateful, very loyal fans from two decades ago falling over themselves screaming "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!" for a properly vetted DVD and re-published book.

Just imagine if Dick Jensen had had social media to promote his trips, fundraise, and/or get help for his dilemmas. Or the Blue Mountain & Reading's mainline trips. How about saving the Alco PAs, or building the A1 Tornado? Or getting both the funds and the groundswell of public support behind, say, seeing 614 back on the C&O, or 3751 or 2926 on the Santa Fe Transcon? Or--dare I go there--1361???

So is $10,000 the most raised by a railroad museum or organization? I can't seem to find anything higher.

I am curious what others would recommend for museums to consider crowdfunding. Many organizations have no idea where to start or do it incorrectly. It would be nice to have a thread here for people to go to. Are there any really good resources? Doing a google search you see lots of people willing to tell you how to do it (for a fee). It would be nice to have a blueprint for a museum to follow if they want to raise 10k, 50k, 100k or more.

The Conrail Historical Society did pretty well "crowdfunding" before it was really known as that.

We would sometimes see a specific artifact available, and would put out notice through our email list and website forum.

That's how we got our former Erie signal:
http://thecrhs.org/news/The-CRHS-Acquir ... tarucca-PA

ATRRM would be the likely starting place for a deal with Power2Give on behalf of its members in the railway preservation community. Following the example of the AHCMC above, ATRRM would contract and manage the operation. And for this they get a fee off the top.

Phase II in the ATRRM hypothetical is to seek matching support from transportation-based foundations such as NS and NRHS, as well as private foundations.

The P2G model works as noted, we just need a manager. Hello, ATRRM?

Wesley