Chris Waddell wants to climb Kilimanjaro in a wheelchair; George Del Barrio wants to make a film in Cambodia; Jeff Edwards wants to write a book about a sci-fi writer: They want you to fund their dreams.
Web site Kickstarter.com is making it possible for people like this to raise sums ranging from a few hundred to tens of thousands of dollars to fund anything that captures the imagination of Internet users with a little money to spare.
It worked for Emily Richmond, a 24-year-old living in Los Angeles who plans to sail solo around the world for two years.
She raised US$8,142 from 148 people who will receive rewards such as photos from the trip, an origami sailboat or a telephone call when she crosses the equator.
Landon Ray, who runs a marketing software firm called SendPepper.com, gave US$500 after showing his five-year-old daughter Richmond’s video promising to keep donors updated by blog and send rewards such as a coconut mailed from a far-flung port.
“I thought this was a perfect learning experience for my daughter,” Ray said, adding that he also dreamed of sailing the world himself, so it was partly about living vicariously.
Many of the projects are by filmmakers, musicians, artists and writers. Project creators set a time limit and a target. If they don’t reach it, they get nothing.
Jason Bitner’s pitch for US$7,500 to pay for post-production of a documentary about the small Midwestern town of La Porte, Indiana, was so popular it raised US$12,153.
The film is about an archive of portraits by a photographer who died in 1971. Bitner came across boxes of the pictures in the back room of a diner and has published a book. The film features interviews with the subjects 40 or 50 years later.
About a third of his 149 backers were friends and family. Others include residents of La Porte but also people from as far afield as Denmark and Australia.
Jonathan Scott Chinn, who is seeking US$16,500 to make a short comedy-horror film called Always a Bridesmaid said the site was an efficient “creative marketplace.”
“You’re given the opportunity to make your pitch and if it’s really interesting, it will take off,” he said.
Kickstarter cofounder Perry Chen said about US$500,000 had been donated in the four months since it was launched, with more than 60 percent of projects achieving their goal.
Until now the site has charged no fee, but from the middle of this month it will charge 5 percent of funds donated to successful projects.
Chen said so far there had been no scams that he knows of, though plenty of projects simply don’t take off.
“The model works really well to prevent any type of misbehavior because the people who fund these projects; there’s always a core group of the person’s social network,” he said. “Those are bridges people will work very hard not to burn.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing