Patron Check-in: Donations and Desires

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Crowdfunding Patrons:  What are some of your recent donations?  What projects have you supported by boosting the signal or other methods?  What kind of material would you like to see that isn't appearing or is very scarce?

Comments

[ankewehner.livejournal.com]

Chipped in to http://www.indiegogo.com/Pueblo-of-Acoma-Storytelling-Studio because preserving a language and culture seems like something that should be supported.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/24724893/plunge-magazine-queer-women-genre

And aldersprig's Giraffe Call.

Yay!

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I really like the storytelling and language projects too, and I've seen several of those pop up on different hub sites. I often boost the signal for these when I see them.

Thanks for supporting Plunge magazine too!

[minor-architect.livejournal.com]

Because I'm budgeting my crowdfunding and charitable donations this year (and probably for the next 3-5 years), I'm keeping a close watch on what I'm spending. So according to my records for January and February:

* Published the poem "Klytaimēstra's Kestos" by Elizabeth Barrette
* Supported the Kickstarter project "New Year's Weave" by Dee Clements
* Supported website improvements for Sketch Fest
* Published the poem "Iconoclysm" by Elizabeth Barrette

This prompts me to ask other donors: must you budget your support of crowdfunded projects, too? If so, is it a weekly, monthly, or yearly line item? And how do you determine the target figure that works for you? Mine is a yearly line item, this year determined by the fact that I will soon have two large, ongoing expenses. The exact timeline for those big purchases hasn't been decided yet, so I expect my target figure will change from year-to-year until that's settled.

Yay!

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

This is a really useful breakdown!

I don't budget. If I had enough money for a regular budget, I would probably take a set percentage out of my Poetry Fishbowl earnings and reinvest it in other people's crowdfunded projects, on a monthly basis (with optional mid-month boost).

What I actually do is occasionally ask my_partner_doug if we can spare $2 or so.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

I have a yearly 'personal entertainment' budget, but it's much tighter this year with a child on the near horizon. I don't dedicate that entire amount towards crowdfunding, either, but spread it out between commissioning art, buying books, crowdfunding and buying crafts or jewelry. I do tend to spend it directly on the creator, though - I don't spend my budget in big stores. (I also try to barter for things when I can, using art, programming or writing, but my time is evaporating with my money!)

[minor-architect.livejournal.com]

I also try to barter for things when I can, using art, programming or writing, but my time is evaporating with my money!

Because I'm saving as much spending cash as I can for those large purchases, I'm now trying to barter my time and effort for crowdfunding perks, too. A good example of this is my offer to run ysabetwordsmith's Poetry Fishbowl linkback perk posts. This way, she can devote more of her energy to writing, I get to read the donor perk posts and vote in the donor polls, the rest of her audience gets extra poetry and everyone's happy. :)

(By the way, I don't know what kind of work I could do for the Sketch Fests that would benefit us both but if you think of anything, let me know. I can't code beyond VERY basic HTML but the offer stands if an idea strikes you!)

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>I'm now trying to barter my time and effort for crowdfunding perks, too. <<

Hmm, let's see ...

Torn World (http://www.tornworld.net) has the Canon Board and other volunteers who edit submissions, post on torn_world, or promote the project. That generally pays in merit points, which can be used for things like adopting characters or encouraging favorite contributors.

kajones_writing has credits, which can be earned by spotting typos, posting links or reviews, and other activities; then spent to get new stories, create characters or settings, and so forth. I think she's up to 15 series now.

The Crowdfunding Creative Jam here is open for other folks to volunteer to run a month. I think it would be nice to let other people get into the action that way. You'd get to pick the theme, for instance, and the exact timing -- it's a 2-day event on the third weekend of the month, but host's choice of Friday-Monday. I haven't attached any other perks to hosting since I've been doing it myself, but I could probably come up with something if that would help.

>>This way, she can devote more of her energy to writing, I get to read the donor perk posts and vote in the donor polls, the rest of her audience gets extra poetry and everyone's happy.<<

Yes, this is awesome. I started handing off tasks after the time a fishbowl totally got away from me because I was doing things other than writing poems. Now I have folks to take care of the non-poem tasks and all is smooth again.

[minor-architect.livejournal.com]

The Crowdfunding Creative Jam here is open for other folks to volunteer to run a month. I think it would be nice to let other people get into the action that way.

*ponders* Tell you what: I'll run the Jam for a month and see how it goes. If its upkeep doesn't disrupt my weekend schedule too much (I usually have a lot of household chores that can't be crammed into my 6am - 6pm work week), then I'll opt for other months, as well. So if you have no objections, may I take over April's event? That third weekend falls right after Holocaust Remembrance Day (April 19), which is something I'd like to raise awareness of. The themes of "blood" (as a lot was spilled during the Holocaust) and "respect" (and the extreme lack thereof) seem to fit right in, so I'd probably choose one of those.

What do you think?

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>I'll run the Jam for a month and see how it goes. If its upkeep doesn't disrupt my weekend schedule too much (I usually have a lot of household chores that can't be crammed into my 6am - 6pm work week), then I'll opt for other months, as well.<<

Most of the work involves doing an advance announcement (usually the Monday prior) and making the initial posts on LiveJournal and Dreamwidth. After that, just kind of keep an eye on things in case a flamewar breaks out or something else goes haywire, but it's usually mellow. Post a contribution if you have time; that's not required.

>>So if you have no objections, may I take over April's event? That third weekend falls right after Holocaust Remembrance Day (April 19), which is something I'd like to raise awareness of.<<

Noted and logged! Historical tie-ins are cool.

>> The themes of "blood" (as a lot was spilled during the Holocaust) and "respect" (and the extreme lack thereof) seem to fit right in, so I'd probably choose one of those.<<

Good options.

[minor-architect.livejournal.com]

Most of the work involves doing an advance announcement (usually the Monday prior) and making the initial posts on LiveJournal and Dreamwidth.

Thanks for reminding me about the advance announcement; I'd completely forgotten about it!

However, I don't have a Dreamwidth account to use for posting to the Crowdfunding community there, so what do you suggest? (I learned from experience that I don't like keeping up with more than one journal, so I trashed the few others I had floating about.)

Otherwise, I'm good to go for April's Creative Jam!

Hmm...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>However, I don't have a Dreamwidth account to use for posting to the Crowdfunding community there, so what do you suggest? (I learned from experience that I don't like keeping up with more than one journal, so I trashed the few others I had floating about.)<<

Some options:

1) Get a DW account just for posting stuff like this, without running it as an active blog. Plenty of folks do this on DW and LJ both.

2) I could copy and echo your posts on DW.

3) You could find someone else on DW to copy and echo your posts.

[minor-architect.livejournal.com]

After a little thought, I've decided on Option #1. Even if someone else echoed my posts on DW, I'd still need an account to manage the comments without creating a lot of confusion and irritating myself with Open ID. (Sometimes it works well for me, sometimes it makes me tear my hair out.) So I'll see if this same username is available on DW and create a "placeholder account" for use during the Creative Jam.

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

This is very helpful and I appreciate it.

[ankewehner.livejournal.com]

I don't have a strict budget, but I keep an eye on how much I spend for entertainment and such each month.