www.communityfunded.com
Well, I have learned a thing or two this week about how fundraising really works in this new, and I must admit, powerful world we live in. The internet has opened up opportunities and tools never even dreamed of when we started this project in 2006.
I have always shied away from asking people for money, I guess on the principles I learned from living in a small, rural community where it was considered bad manners. We also don't look at the end of the year for places to donate our money instead of giving it to the government...that concept just hasn't really taken off out here, either. We pay the tax man dutifully and then suck it up for another year.
But this week as CLCEC begins to rally our troops to conduct a month-long fundraising blitz to buy digital projection for the Plains Theater, I learned that there are people, lots of them, who are looking to support our type of project instead of giving it away for nothing (it seems) to the government. In essence, my mindset was shifted after meeting many philanthropy experts only interested in bettering this world we live in.
There's this new and nifty concept on the internet called CROWDSOURCING where you put your project, in our case Save the Historical Plains Theater, and people actually want to support this project by either donating to it or they will offer in-kind goods and services for the project. All donations and in-kind giftbacks are collected on the project site and the fundraising goal is prominently displayed throughout the fundraising period. The projects on these crowdsourcing sites are as varied as the world we live in, and a person can find any number of unique and worthwhile projects to donate to....instead of giving it to our government.
I have always shied away from asking people for money, I guess on the principles I learned from living in a small, rural community where it was considered bad manners. We also don't look at the end of the year for places to donate our money instead of giving it to the government...that concept just hasn't really taken off out here, either. We pay the tax man dutifully and then suck it up for another year.
But this week as CLCEC begins to rally our troops to conduct a month-long fundraising blitz to buy digital projection for the Plains Theater, I learned that there are people, lots of them, who are looking to support our type of project instead of giving it away for nothing (it seems) to the government. In essence, my mindset was shifted after meeting many philanthropy experts only interested in bettering this world we live in.
There's this new and nifty concept on the internet called CROWDSOURCING where you put your project, in our case Save the Historical Plains Theater, and people actually want to support this project by either donating to it or they will offer in-kind goods and services for the project. All donations and in-kind giftbacks are collected on the project site and the fundraising goal is prominently displayed throughout the fundraising period. The projects on these crowdsourcing sites are as varied as the world we live in, and a person can find any number of unique and worthwhile projects to donate to....instead of giving it to our government.
CLCEC has a project at www.communityfunded.com that will go live on Monday. For the next month, until January 10th, we will try to convince you that the Plains Theater should be one of the lucky rural theaters in the nation that will be able to install expensive, but required, digital projection and Dolby sound. I encourage all our supporters to go there and give to the project instead of giving it to Uncle Sam.
There are three things you can do once you get on our project at www.communityfunded.com:
1. Make a PLEDGE to the project and your name will be added to our donors.
2. Earn a REWARD (if you donate enough) or Give a REWARD by offering your goods or services to the Save the Historical Plains Theater project. Say you are a business that has some inventory you need to move or you will have to count it at the end of the year. Donate that inventory to the project and people can give their Pledge and receive your in-kind donation.
3. Share our project and pass it on to all your friends and acquaintances....you know how powerful those "six degrees of separation" can actually be!!
To get you inspired, here is a video about our wonderful Plains Theater. If you agree we should save this wonderful building and #DigitizeThePlains then please donate from this website today or starting tomorrow you can access our project at www.communityfunded.com. Visit often and see how we are doing.....we hope we benefit from your changed mindset of giving to a great local project instead of a government that is......well..... I'll save that topic for another time.
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