Crowdfunding is "hot", as a means of enabling people to raise money for expensive projects. Kickstarter.com may be one of the best-known crowdfunding web sites, in relation to "creative" or artistic projects, like movies and so forth, but there are a number of other competing sites, and they do not all have the drawbacks associated with Kickstarter, which a.) Requires the ability to create and submit digital videos, and b.) Has an "all or nothing" fund raising model which requires that folks meet a particularly deadline or forfeit any of the funds raised via the site for that particular project. (Kickstarter has raised funds for some worthy projects, like the movie Blue Like Jazz, which took the Christian message into the mainstream, so I'm not knocking the site. But it's just one of the ten companies listed in this article about crowdfunding web sites for small businesses.)
Donald Trump, the real estate magnate who once ran for U.S. President, has chosen to back a crowdfunding web site called FundAnything.com. I haven't used that site much, but it seems to have some potential, and the idea of funding "anything" is certainly appealing.
WeFunder.com is listed at the top of the aforementioned article. On the company's home page, they list a project involving the creation of flying cars. Seriously! It's called the Terrafugia Transition, and it can be seen at www.terrafugia.com or www.driventofly.com or https://wefunder.com/terrafugia. There are also plans for a flying car that can take off and land vertically, without the need for a runway. It's called the TF-X, and won't be available for another ten years.
GoFundMe.com. http://www.gofundme.com/47hpeg is the page I have set up for the purpose of raising funds with which to promote Get Hitched, via EDDM mailings, printed by a company such as Postcard Mania.
Quirky.com is specifically for inventors. One of the images on the home page shows a nice AC power strip I have actually seen in local stores.
Many crowdfunding web sites operate by offering various levels of "perks" for donors. That's a good thing to do, in terms of offering an incentive to people who might donate funds. But it usually is not tied directly to specific products.
Cafe Press (www.cafepress.com) has a new crowdfunding option which seems pretty attractive. It's called TFund (www.tfund.com). By designing "Direct To Garment" products, one can create salable products which can be used to raise funds, and which can also promote one's product or project or group. So, for example, I could design a T-shirt with the text "Get Hitched: A Group for Men and Women Seeking Spouses". It would include a graphic image consisting of a QR code which would lead people to that Meetup.com site, or to this blog. Not everyone has a "smart phone" with which to easily scan the QR code, and not everyone knows how easy it is to upload digital photos of QR codes to sites which will decode them, so it would also be important to include contact information such as a phone number and an email address.
The Meetup.com site offers the ability to create "sponsors" for various groups there, and to link to the relevant pages for those sponsors. I could be wrong, but it seems likely to me that one could designate one's TFund.com as one of the sponsors for one's Meetup.com site/group. I haven't yet done that, but I plan to explore the option of doing so, because none of my Meetup.com groups, like Get Hitched or Bellingham Socials, are likely to succeed unless and until they can be adequately promoted.
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