I’ve written about crowdfunding before. Kickstarter, Indiegogo, USA Projects - online bazaars for people with project ideas to solicit financial support. That is, beg. Some treat it as an investment (not unlike angel investing or buying shares), but most appeal to good will without promise of dividends.
“My daughter is a teacher in North Little Rock,” says Rhonda House, whom we’ll get to in a moment. “She didn’t have enough money to get her [art] materials for her students, so she put a global funding request up on a website and she had her funds in three days.”
“I said, ‘See, Kelly, North Little Rock does care!’”
“She said, ‘Momma, that money didn’t come from North Little Rock. Most of the money came from Boston and Los Angeles.’”
House is a part-time fundraiser for Open Arms (don’t get the Journey song stuck in your … too late) Shelter in Lonoke. It has 24 beds for children pulled from homes because of abuse or neglect and not yet placed in a foster home, but in 2011 the state’s Department of Human Services contracted with Open Arms for only 15 beds for emergency foster care. Rather than leave rooms empty, the shelter, according to House and executive director Nancy Hamlin, has continued to accept children for any available bed.
Now, it should be said that the state one year ago agreed to pay the shelter for those nine extra beds as much as they would a foster home, but that’s about $750 a bed per month - a fraction of the disbursement for an emergency foster care child. (With the help of state Rep. Davy Carter, that amount has been increased to $1,000.)
“Momma, you really need to look into [crowdfunding] for the shelter and consider doing a campaign. You have nothing to lose,” House’s daughter told her.
And that’s the kooky thing about crowdfunding. It appears you really do have nothing to lose - and potentially thousands to gain.
Everything we’re told about fundraising campaigns suggests the time and effort are substantial, but so is the reward. Now, the Internet has long been a wellspring of free and discounted stuff formerly a considerable expense (a set of World Book encyclopedias) or not easy to find (jewelry adapted from fishing tackle) or both (a Victorian teak chifforobe). Crowdfunding would seem to have made the time and effort of fundraising nil and the reward still higher.
So much depends on a compelling video plea. This one includes Kris Allen, which can’t hurt, and a little heartfelt “ask” by House.
April is National Child Abuse Awareness month, and the campaign goes live on April 3, the night of the shelter’s banquet.
Now, Open Arms’ Indiegogo campaign is ambitious as these things go - $162,000. But that’s not outrageous. Earlier this year more than 21,000 people kicked a total of $1.2 million into a Kickstarter campaign for a device that powers and directs a paper airplane from an iPhone.
The creator’s goal was to raise $50,000, or less than a third that of Open Arms Shelter.
Is the shelter the more compelling example? That is, should it also expect to exceed its goal by 2,400 percent?
As online crowdfunding goes, um, probably not. Among the million-dollar Kickstarter campaigns on record, of which there are 61, video gaming makes up more than half; the rest are almost exclusively tech gear and movie/TV projects. The truth is that while charitable giving makes us feel good, aspirational appeals - “Oh, cool! I want that to happen!” - really mobilize giving.
In this case, a $25 donation gets you a thank you card designed by one of the shelter children and made into an e-card. A $100 contribution gets a personalized card sent through the mail. At $500, you get some swag and two tickets to a special May 20 celebration at the campaign’s close. Beginning at $4,500, you can be a Bed Sponsor, and the shelter will send you updates on the child occupying this bed for a period of time that goes up depending on the donation - an $18,000 Platinum Plus Bed Sponsor gets a swanky plaque and updates for a year.
“We don’t want [our kids] to feel like they’re in a facility or an institution. We want them to feel like it’s a home for them. Frankly, it’s better than the home I grew up in!” Hamlin says.
You can’t yet find the shelter’s Indiegogo campaign, but to find out more I encourage you to call the shelter’s general number, (501) 676-6166, or Rhonda House directly at (501) 843-9460 or rhondahouse73@gmail.com.
STROKE OF BAD LUCK
In my last column I said that stroke, the fourth leading cause of death in the country, has no local fundraising gala. Later that week I got a call from Joyce Taylor, the new director of the American Heart Association. The association, she said, raises money to fight heart disease and stroke. I went to the website, and the first thing it says is “Our mission is to build healthier lives, free of cardiovascular diseases and stroke.” Then, later that afternoon, Alexis Sims at the association sent me notice that the local office “will honor local heart disease and stroke survivors” on Monday at the Central Arkansas Heart Walk Survivors Reception at the Governor’s Mansion at 5:30 p.m.
So, YOLO.
Wait, I might be using that incorrectly.
To pass along event news or tips, or trends you’ve noticed among nonprofits and fundraising, contact Bobby Ampezzan at (501) 378-3574, or e-mail bampezzan@arkansasonline.com
High Profile, Pages 37 on 03/23/2014