Can you use kickstarter for non profit

Before you begin, you need to figure out what kind of campaign you want to run. The first is an all or nothing AoN model, where you set a minimum goal and if you do not meet that target, no money is collected. The other model allows for you to set goals, but you will keep it all KIA regardless of the total received.

There are many others platforms out there, so explore the landscape before you choose which one is right for you.

Generally, all of the platforms charge 5 percent of the fees collected and an additional percent processing fee for each donation depending on the method. You can use these platforms to boost an individual project, but it should only supplement giving campaigns and donor solicitation.

If you find the right site and build the right campaign, you can fund a new campaign and gain a new way to fund your nonprofit. Did you know there are more than 87, foundations that award grants? Did you also know that Breaking up is hard to do Helpful Tips for Crowdfunding, Kickstarter and Nonprofits. Indiegogo AoN or KIA : One of the first crowdfunding sites that is useful for general campaigns and they accept PayPal, whereas most others only take credit card.

Offers development support. Create a video to tell why this project is necessary and outline the impact it will have. Tell a Story : In addition to the video, make sure you tell a compelling story on your crowdfunding page.

Offer Great Rewards : Set up several different levels to encourage people to give at a higher level. Be creative and offer rewards that will be in demand. From the get-go, we have three major things in focus: Education, Production, and, oh yeah we want to build a theatre facility. It will also house an educational wing for that portion of our organization, as well as space to put together the things we ourselves produce, as opposed to any programming for those spaces.

Those are some major goals. Due to the nature of theatre, we founded the non-profit, and our initial thinking is that the non-profit will own separate for-profit companies that will own and operate the theatre, and a couple others for similar areas, allowing the organization to mitigate risk wherever possible. Thoughts on that are also appreciated, but the main area of my question s at this time deal with raising money for the facility. Less helpful to the situation is that none of the founders are well-off — to be more specific, the economy and family issues have caused the four of us, for varying reasons, to have poor credit.

The business filings, etc are from LegalZoom, in order to avoid some of the complications that come from doing it all internally. I believe it to be best that any crowdfunding to actually go through Indiegogo as opposed to Kickstarter. I do know that allows for month backdating on donations.

Charlie: Thanks for sharing your question here! Given how ambitious this is, my recommendation for funding and other elements is to start small. You can execute certain elements of your plan with minimal i. Once you have that in place, you can select the next step and use crowdfunding to bring it to life. The key is that you are funding the creation of something specific and that your backers get a piece of that creation for themselves in terms of tangible, precious rewards, not equity or swag.

When we launch our kickstarter, eventually I plan to have the reward levels be fairly similar to what you recommend in your blogs, and what other people do: have them be about the actual product and getting a physical game into the hands of the backers.

What do you think? And my example seems to be somewhat in between the 2 categories that you gave! Corey: Thanks for your comment. I definitely will, and thanks for your response. The language I used was to say in vague terms that supporting this KS was supporting a charity on the main page and clear it up in the FAQ as follows:. However while we are a charity, this is not a charity project. This project is about creating, manufacturing and distributing an excellent game :.

In short: Supporting the game helps our charity work because we can print more copies as merchandise for our charity performances, but your pledge is not a charity donation.

Greg: Thanks so much for sharing your experience running a charity-related Kickstarter! Did I miss something there? Email Address. Kickstarter Lesson Charities, Nonprofits, and Kickstarter. Please check back here in a few minutes. Thank you. If not, why?