Reprise: Why do you donate?

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Back in March 2011, aldersprig launched a discussion, "Why do you donate?"  Given our recent discussions about patrons, this seemed like a useful topic to revisit.  You can look at the previous post or just start fresh here.  If you're a patron, you can talk about your spending habits.  If you're both patron and creator, you might contrast your experiences across the two modes.  What makes you click that "donate" button?

Comments

[viva-la-topknot.livejournal.com]

I donate where thing seem interesting, or where I really honestly enjoyed something. I also donate in the interest of karma and networking, I'm planning on trying some crowd-funded things of my own when I have more followers/friends/readers/fans, etc. I also, almost exclusively, only donate to people with at least a small following. Those people seem more trustworthy, in some way.

Like ankewehner above, meters work as incentive for me too. I can see how much the creator has and how much they want/need/what their goal is, and the visual feedback of, "I donated and the meter goes up!" is just pleasing, somehow.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>I also donate in the interest of karma and networking, I'm planning on trying some crowd-funded things of my own when I have more followers/friends/readers/fans, etc. <<

Yes, I think this is key for the many people who are both creators and donors. There are a handful of people who donate to my project and I donate to theirs.

>>I also, almost exclusively, only donate to people with at least a small following. Those people seem more trustworthy, in some way.<<

The social aspect of crowdfunding is important, because it helps people tell which projects are entertaining and reliable. This is one area where it would help to have a major crowdfunding hub site that would let people enter projects and 'favorite' them or something like that, so you could see at a glance which ones were most popular. Crowdsourced selection isn't perfect, but watching audiences in this field reveals that they tend to be pretty astute. A project that has a bunch of followers is probably worth at least a look.

>>Like ankewehner above, meters work as incentive for me too. <<

This is cool to hear.

Re: Thoughts

[ankewehner.livejournal.com]

Kinda sucks that all domains with "crowdfunding" are being squatted on. I hate domain squatters.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

That is frustrating, yes. I still hope that, at some point, we'll be able to launch a crowdfunding hub site to make it easier for creators and patrons to find each other, and offer more services for handling information. If so, we'll work on figuring out a domain name at the time. Modifiers are your friends!