Crowdfunding success!
My rockethub project closed today and it was an incredible success! I raised $5,175 - more than my goal. The success of this project was due to a group of family, friends, colleagues, and strangers who thought my project was cool and/or were intrigued by the crowdfunding model. Overall, it was really awesome to see how many people got excited about science and wanted to help out. Here are some pointers on how to make your own project a crowdfunding success:
1. Make sure your project information is accessible to a broad range of people. Transcriptome sequencing can seem pretty esoteric to many, but I had a number of people tell me that my project description made it easy to understand.
2. Use your social media connections to get the word out. A large majority of my fuelers came from advertising my project over facebook. I posted about it on my wall (and friends re-posted), but I also created an “event” so that people actually got invitations to donate to my project.
3. Spread the word to people who are somehow connected to what you do. The last-minute surge of donations came mostly from people involved in the shellfish industry. I had contacted Bill Dewey of Taylor Shellfish about my project and he spread the word to his colleagues. A number of them showed amazing generosity, including one person who created a challenge for the others to collectively donate $750, which he then matched!
Thank you to everyone who made this project a success! I’m excited to put the funds to good use and generate some much needed data on how ocean acidification affects Pacific oysters.
