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The most popular crowdfunding platform is Kickstarter, which launched in 2009. It was the initial source of funding for the Cards Against Humanities card game<\/a>, Julia Nunes\u2019 latest CD<\/a>, and the Pebble watch<\/a>.<\/p>\nWith the popularity of Kickstarter, a number of other crowdfunding platforms were launched, each with a slightly different angle or method. Indiegogo<\/a> allows projects from across the world (unlike Kickstarter, which is limited to very few countries due to middle-man Amazon\u2019s payment regulations). Pledgemusic<\/a> specializes in music projects. RocketHub<\/a> was one of the first of the broadly themed crowdfunding sites to encourage scientists to crowdsource funding for their research projects.<\/p>\n While some popular Kickstarter projects raise ten times or more of their target goal (the Pebble watch even raised over a hundred times the $100,000 they asked for), scientific research projects are nowhere near this level of fundraising.<\/p>\n But why does this work at all? Why are a quarter of SciFund Challenge projects<\/a> fully funded? Why would you contribute to someone else\u2019s research project?<\/p>\n Many of the research projects that have successfully used crowdfunding have been directly appealing. They\u2019re easy to understand, and relatable. Even when the work itself is highly technical, the description has focused on the bigger picture.<\/p>\n But what happens with your money? Funding a research project does not give a direct return on investments. In the non-research Kickstarter examples I gave above, contributors got a chance to pre-order the final product. They effectively prepaid for their Cards Against Humanities game, their Julia Nunes CD, or their Pebble watch, and the creators used those funds to finalize production. This can be an appealing incentive to fund a project, but it obviously doesn\u2019t apply to academic research.<\/p>\n Research can\u2019t guarantee any outcomes. You can\u2019t promise funders that you\u2019re going to cure a disease or find the last animal of a nearly-extinct species. You can only promise that you\u2019ll work on it.<\/p>\n In that regard, it\u2019s not that<\/em> different from the technology or artistic products that are funded via Kickstarter. Sometimes, they don\u2019t materialize. If a company raises money to develop a product, they can\u2019t guarantee that they\u2019ll definitely be able to create and mass-produce it. Last month, Kickstarter updated their guidelines for hardware and product design projects, to make it more clear to funders that the product is not yet ready, and that Kickstarter is not a store<\/a>. They want to discourage people from offering the finished product as reward, and emphasize that funding should be a way to support the work of a person or company you care about<\/a>.<\/p>\n Scientific crowdfunding is not raking in millions, though. Even with cute pictures and clear descriptions, some of the most interesting research projects have not even reached half of their goal. Why not? It could be because people don\u2019t care about the research of people they don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n Successful crowdfunding relies on getting your name out there – the same way musicians get their projects funded through Kickstarter. Ethan Perlstein has been doing just that, by promoting his project everywhere, being accessible online via social media and his lab website, and even holding a launch party<\/a>. If that sounds like a lot of work, remember how much work goes into grant-writing.<\/p>\n Is it worth it?<\/p>\n As a researcher, you can\u2019t run a lab on crowdfunding alone, but you can use it to try to fund a project that you can\u2019t afford otherwise.<\/p>\n For the backers of a crowdfunded project, it\u2019s also a way to get closer to the research, and feel a part of it. They may get a thank-you email, a mention on the website, a photo of the work, or maybe a lab visit. That might not be as much incentive as receiving a special edition of their favourite musician\u2019s CD, but the most direct output of academic research is knowledge, and that\u2019s not something you can pre-order in limited special editions.<\/p>\n Still, backing one project directly may be appealing to people who want to get their knowledge directly from the researchers. Where tax-funded research leads to a broad general output of knowledge in the form of documentaries, newspaper articles, and books, crowdfunding may get you personal email updates from the one lab you funded. It\u2019s a chance to get a glimpse into the process of research.<\/p>\n Crowdfunding is unlikely to bring in enough money to support entire labs. If you lose your main research grant, you can\u2019t replace it by creating a RocketHub project. I don\u2019t say this because I don\u2019t believe that it will catch on, but because even the most popular and obnoxiously self-promoting musicians who use crowdfunding<\/a> are not bringing in the kind of money that would support an average lab for more than a few years. Research is ridiculously expensive.<\/p>\n So don\u2019t use crowdfunding as a life-saver, but as a source of funding for your pet projects. Other than SciFund and RocketHub, there are a few other crowdfunding platforms for researchers such as Petridish.org<\/a> and Microryza<\/a>.<\/p>\n (P.S. I\u2019d been sitting on this idea for a post for months, and just as I thought \u201cThis weekend I\u2019ll have time to write!\u201d the Economist covered the exact same topic<\/a>. Great timing.<\/em><\/p>\n My own idea originally started as \u201chow to be an indie researcher\u201d – a post in which I\u2019d list a few alternatives to the way research is done. But there was way too much to be said about crowdfunding alone, so this post happened. Let me know in the comments if you want me to do the \u201cindie scientist\u201d post after all! It will include drop-in community labs, citizen science, open access\/science, DIY Bio, \u201cscience hostels\u201d and other ideas. No, I will not teach you how to set up a meth lab.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Academic researchers are one of the few professionals who have to spend a large amount of time throughout their entire career begging for money just to keep their job. It\u2019s hard to get grants. It\u2019s a lot of work to … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/irregulars\/files\/2012\/10\/perlstein-150x150.jpeg\")
<\/a>At this moment, there are six projects in the \u201cscience\u201d category at RocketHub<\/a>, of which two directly go toward research: Chris Thomas has, in the past two weeks, raised $10 toward a $10,000 goal<\/a> to fund the research of Magnus Essand. Ethan Perlstein is doing a lot better, and has raised over $8000<\/a> in the same amount of time, toward a $25,000 goal.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/irregulars\/files\/2012\/10\/Screen-shot-2012-10-21-at-17.27.59.png\")
<\/a>A few times per year, there are far more than six science projects on RocketHub. They\u2019ve partnered with the SciFund Challenge<\/a>, an organisation that helps scientists develop crowdfunding proposals. They\u2019re currently training the third round of SciFund applicants<\/a>, whose projects will go live on RocketHub in November. SciFund helps researchers build a crowdfunding campaign, and explains the importance of marketing and language, but still, most of their projects don\u2019t reach their full funding goal<\/a>. However, unlike some of the other crowdfunding platforms, RocketHub projects that don\u2019t meet their full funding goal do<\/em> get to keep the money they raised, and spend that on part of the project as they see fit.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/irregulars\/files\/2012\/10\/palmer.jpeg\")
Still, even when the rewards are purely as a thank-you gift – as they will always be for scientific research projects – people who back a project may want to know where their money is going. If a project reaches more than its intended goal (which a number of them have done) what are the researchers planning to spend the additional money on? So far there haven\u2019t been any questions about scientific projects, but in a scenario that can easily be extended to research, Kickstarter backers of Amanda Palmer\u2019s CD and tour raised questions about her expenses<\/a> – especially when she asked for volunteer backup musicians after already having raised over a million dollars. Be prepared to account for everything you do with money raised through crowdfunding!<\/p>\n