MetaCROWD – Crowdfunding The Crowd

What is MetaCROWD?

I've created a number of crowdfunding campaigns over the past few years, as well as having been an early adopter of the crowdfunding concept about 12 years ago. In that time, I've also come across many other interesting campaigns, and known many people who have used crowdfunding for a variety of purposes. I've also seen that many crowdfunding campaigns fail to receive any donations, while others struggle in the final 10% of their fundraising goal. So, I've created MetaCROWD to promote and help boost interesting crowdfunding campaigns, in addition to my own.

A crowdfunding campaign with few or no donations is much less likely to receive more donations than one with many. So one of the purposes of this project is to boost promising campaigns by making initial donations, and periodic donations during the life of a campaign. For campaigns, particularly all-or-nothing ones, pushing toward the final goal, MetaCROWD can stimulate activity, or can offer matching donations as an incentive to help those campaigns achieve their goals.

With enough reach, any crowdfunding can achieve its fundraising goal even with small donations. We may not all know many people, but each person we know, knows many others, each of whom knows still others. Even with significant overlap, it's possible within a few degrees of connections to reach a significant portion of the connected global population. If even 1% of those people donated $5 to a campaign, that would far exceed the fundraising goals of most campaigns. By donating to MetaCROWD, we achieve true global redistribution of wealth according to need. Excess donations from one campaign can be used to support other campaigns.

My background

My first crowdfunding effort, well before the advent of sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, was an attempt to crowdfund a company manufacturing and retailing green transportation and energy technology in Canada and the US, by offering a combination of equity and credit to investors, enabling them to order products in advance, at a steep discount, and be among the first to receive their vehicles and other products. Unfortunately, the window of opportunity for this venture passed without sufficient interest, and in time the technology seemed not to be viable.

Despite the failure of this first attempt, it convinced me that the crowdfunding model was the future of venture capital, if performed with honesty and integrity. With crowdfunding, one can access a large community of small-scale venture capitalists, and at the same time, the risk is distributed--no one investor or VC takes on a large amount of risk.

What sorts of campaigns will MetaCROWD support?

MetaCROWD will support a variety of campaigns and projects. Supporting entrepreneurship, especially for people with disabilities and other barriers to employment. Supporting promising technological innovations. Supporting LGBTIQ people trying to access medical care, housing, services, and assisting those living under oppressive regimes to flee their country. Artistic endeavours. Interesting ideas. Non-profit organizations. My own campaigns and projects, and those of friends and friends of friends.

Campaigns

Currently, I'm running two crowdfunding campaigns to raise money for photography gear, and one for music gear, plus the MetaCROWD campaign. I'm also developing a number of campaigns for various companies and non-profit organizations, but taking time to work out logistics, branding, promotion, and other issues before launching them. 100% of funds raised from this campaign, excluding fees, will go to supporting crowdfunding campaigns, including my own. No more than 10% will go to my own campaigns.

My top-priority campaign right now is one on IndieGoGo, for some fitness equipment to help me get in better shape and improve my quality of life. It only has a week left, as of August 27 2015.

http://igg.me/at/fitness4jesse/x/304755

https://assets.gogetfunding.com/project/taking-this-show-on-the-road

In this campaign, I'm attempting to raise $15000 for a long list of music gear, to expand my studio, as well as to enhance my live performance. I'm focusing mostly on inexpensive gear, but it still adds up, especially with tax and shipping. As incentives I'm offering downloads of my recently released album, Soundtrack of an Unreleased Film http://neur0mancer.bandcamp.com/album/soundtrack-of-an-unreleased-film, at a discount from the regular price, and lifetime guestlist for my shows.

https://assets.gogetfunding.com/project/lens-fund-stage-i

In this campaign, I'm trying to raise funds for some gear to enhance my photography capabilities. These are my highest priority items. I buy most of my photography gear used, so I don't know exactly how much it will cost to get everything on the list, but I've estimated the cost at $32600, and that's my fundraising goal. I'm offering prints of my photographs on aluminum sheet as incentives, and I plan to add one or more photo books in the future. I'm also offering downloads of my recently released ambient album, a destination wedding and honeymoon package at a steep discount, and advertising/sponsorship opportunities on my gear and on my photography websites.

https://assets.gogetfunding.com/project/lens-fund-stage-ii

In this campaign, I'm also trying to raise funds for photography gear. This is my low priority list, and my dream wishlist--all the photography gear I want that isn't on my other list, excluding vintage gear, which I'd like to collect, but don't have the space for. For incentives, I'm focusing entirely on sponsorship for this campaign; essentially, I'm selling advertising on the side of my lenses and other gear, for the cost of each piece of gear, along with additional advertising on the web. This one includes a bunch of lenses for my current camera, particularly several Canon supertelephoto prime lenses, as well as other camera systems such as Hasselblad, Leica, Phase One, and Sinar. I'm continually adding more items to it, but the total cost has already exceeded $700 000.

http://www.patreon.com/nAbleMedia?alert=1

This is my Patreon account, where I hope to generate a steady monthly income to support all the various projects and art I do.

Some other campaigns that you may be interested in, and that MetaCROWD is supporting:

igg.me/at/vFfi8GRKon4

Raising funds for a bike for commuting to work, to help a family with 2 autistic parents get by.