Two Minute Tips

Journalists turn to Kickstarter in a big way

December 11, 2014

Share this article:

Two summers ago, I dove into crowd funding. I successfully funded a journalism project, Curbing Cars: Rethinking The Way We Get Around, which looked at how Americans are changing their attitudes toward driving. Earlier this year, I published the purpose of the Kickstarter, an eBook from Forbes.

The project took a lot of planning, and there was some nail biting and cajoling as the deadline approached. To be honest, I had to dispense with my discomfort about asking friends for help, and get over my hesitancy to self-promote.

But we made it, and it turns out that Kickstarter is fast becoming a funding mechanism for other journalists. I was reminded of it this week when Molly O’Neill, the food journalist and a former colleague at The New York Times, successfully funded her project, called Little BIG Books.

Earlier this year, Kickstarter introduced a Journalism category (it’s separate from the traditional Publishing category). Another former Times colleague David Gallagher, now one of the movers and shakers at Kickstarter, sent me some stats.

  •  145 journalism projects have been successfully funded so far this year.
  • They’ve raised a total of $1,353,920.
  • They attracted 20,572 pledges (not backers — since backers may have pledged to more than one project)
Let’s ponder those numbers one more time. There are 145 journalism projects that didn’t exist before 2014 that now exist, thanks to donations from the public. Just these projects, which don’t include mine from last year, have raised $1.3 million, and more than 20,000 pledges were made to back them.
 
I’d say that’s pretty convincing evidence of the power of crowd funding in journalism. And, there are other crowd funding sources beyond Kickstarter, like Indiegogo, whose rules are slightly different.
Here are some of the Kickstarter-related projects that launched or expanded in 2014.
 

The Reynolds Center is planning to offer a workshop in 2015 with plenty of tips for planning and launching your journalism project. In the meantime, take a look at these resources if you want to start planning ahead. And just give me a call if you want to brainstorm. Crowd funding isn’t easy, but it’s bringing journalism to life.

STORY IDEAS

Kickstarter FAQs

Seven Crowdfunding Tips

Crowdfunding Pros and Cons

More Like This...

Five takeaways from recent business investigations

For business beat reporters looking for story ideas or inspiration, here are five watchdog stories to spark creativity. The stories, all published in the first seven months of 2022, touch

Think like a business owner. Not a freelancer.

Not all journalism grads will work as full-time staff for a news organization. Maybe after searching on JournalismJobs.com and following up with journalism school contacts, you’ll choose to become a

Two Minute Tips

Sign up now.
Get one Tuesday.

Every Tuesday we send out a quick-read email with tips for business journalism.

Subscribers also get access to the Tip archive.

Get Two Minute Tips For Business Journalism Delivered To Your Email Every Tuesday

Two Minute Tips

Every Tuesday we send out a quick-read email with tips for business journalism. Sign up now and get one Tuesday.