The Slow Funds Movement - Revision history

Nkkl: /* Project specifics */ - spelling fix

2012-07-23T21:56:13Z

‎Project specifics: - spelling fix

Nkkl: /* Project specifics */ - rearranging questions to go with their answers

2012-07-23T21:49:43Z

‎Project specifics: - rearranging questions to go with their answers

Nkkl at 19:48, 23 July 2012

2012-07-23T19:48:30Z

Nkkl: /* Audience Q&A */ - summarizing audience Q&A into themes

2012-07-23T19:47:30Z

‎Audience Q&A: - summarizing audience Q&A into themes

Show changes

Nkkl: cleaned up panel Q&A

2012-07-23T18:35:05Z

cleaned up panel Q&A

Nkkl: /* Rick Devos */

2012-07-23T18:01:57Z

‎Rick Devos

Nkkl: added link to liveblog

2012-07-23T17:56:49Z

added link to liveblog

Nkkl: Initial dump

2012-07-23T14:36:51Z

Initial dump

Nkkl: Created page with "{{TOC right}} What is the Slow Funds movement? Is it like the Slow Foods movement? category:Monday category:Meta"

2012-07-19T22:51:05Z

Created page with "{{TOC right}} What is the Slow Funds movement? Is it like the Slow Foods movement? category:Monday category:Meta"

New page

{{TOC right}}

What is the Slow Funds movement? Is it like the Slow Foods movement?

[[category:Monday]]
[[category:Meta]]

@@ Line 64: / Line 64: @@
 === Project specifics ===
-* Where did the money for Startgarden come from?
+* Where did the money for Start Garden come from?
 Startgarden was funded by private investors.

@@ Line 65: / Line 65: @@
 === Project specifics ===
 * Where did the money for Startgarden come from?
 Startgarden was funded by private investors.
 Close to half of projects on Kickstarter are in the $1,000-5,000 range and 2/3 are under $10,000, and $10,000 is about the highest that Smallknot has seen. Within the Awesome Foundation, many international chapters ask how to handle exchange rates and the rule of thumb is "enough to get something done but not enough to fight over".

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:48, 23 July 2012
Line 14:		Line 14:

	== Panel Discussion ==		== Panel Discussion ==
−	~~Moderated by Christina Xu. These are the main themes; for more complete transcripts see [http://civic.mit.edu/blog/rahulb/awesome-summit-2012-slow-funds the liveblog].~~

	=== Scalability ===		=== Scalability ===

@@ Line 4: / Line 4: @@
 == Participants ==
-=== Rick Devos ===
+=== Rick DeVos ===
-* Grand Rapids, MI
+Rick runs a number of projects focused on Grand Rapids, MI: [http://www.artrise.com/ ArtRise], [http://momentum-mi.com/ Momemtum], and most recently [http://startgarden.com/ Start Garden], which has eclipsed the first two. All three of these projects are local and focused on investing in the community.
 === Jay Lee ===
-==== Smallknot ====
+Jay runs a startup called [http://smallknot.com/ Smallknot] that does hyperlocal crowdfunding to support local businesses. Small businesses put up pages on Smallknot, use the platform to raise funds in their local community, and then pay their supporters back (in full plus interest) in goods and services.
 === Stephanie Pereira ===
-Director of Art Program at Kickstarter
+Stephanie is the Director of Art at [http://www.kickstarter.com/ Kickstarter]. Her focus is on reaching out to artists and helping them develop successful Kickstarter campaigns, and she shares a number of examples of projects that have a done a good job engaging funders in meaningful and innovative ways.
-===== Kickstarter =====
+== Panel Discussion ==
-* 13 categories
+Moderated by Christina Xu. These are the main themes; for more complete transcripts see [http://civic.mit.edu/blog/rahulb/awesome-summit-2012-slow-funds the liveblog].
-== Question and Answer ==
+=== Scalability ===
-* Slow food movement gets critiqued for being too boutique - is that also true for your projects? (scalability)
+* The Slow Food movement gets critiqued for being too boutique, which hurts scalability. Is this a danger for slow funding?
-** Jay: Demand is what drives scale, and once more people get engaged costs go down, and transport and prep issues don't apply to finance
+* A big part of crowfunding is getting funders involved beyond just giving money. Is there a point where we'll be oversaturated with these personal beyond-economic transactions? For example, sometimes it's too tiring to deal with Couchsurfing, and you just want Airbnb or a hotel.
-* Do you think there is a point where we'll be saturated with these personal beyond-economic transactions? Ex: couchsurfing vs. air bnb, sometimes it's too tiring to deal with couchsurfing, sometimes people want a less entangled transaction
+It's easier to scale slow funding because there aren't the same material and logistics costs with funding, and there are a lot of layers of involvement available. Projects really work on a human scale. Sometimes the demand for funder involvement can be overwhelming, but you have the choice to be more or less involved, and decide whether or not to fund something.
 * Another problem the slow food movement has encountered is elitism and silos that lock other people out, with the digital divide what demographics do you see missing from your platform and what is your plan to engage people?
-* Jay, can you tell us about the slow money movement?
+Startgarden and Smallknot have both had great success reaching a broad range of people, especially Smallknot because it leverages the existing customers of a business (and it's the responsibility of the business to reach out). Stephanie points out that Kickstarter's most active cities are the usual suspects (major metropolitan areas), but that there is also a lot of excitement in places like Missoula, Montana that people wouldn't predict.
-** Jay: It's tied to the slow food movement, setting up financing opportunities for slow food businesses. It's been around about 3 years, book by founder: Reflections on the Nature of Slow Money.
 * I'd love to hear about your failure rates? Esp. Kickstarter, we always hear about success rates, how many fail, what happens to them?
 ** Stephanie: Comes up a lot, stats are published live. Average site-wide is ~44%, it varies from category to category. Some learn from it and go via another avenue, some immediately re-try (with pretty high success rate).

@@ Line 7: / Line 7: @@
 * Grand Rapids, MI
-==== ArtPrize =====
+==== ArtPrize ====
 * giving away prizes to artists - have to be over 18, have to show art somewhere within a 3 sq. mi. area, public votes to allocate the prizes

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:56, 23 July 2012
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	{{TOC right}}		{{TOC right}}
		+
		+	For liveblogged transcripts of this talk, see the [http://civic.mit.edu/blog/rahulb/awesome-summit-2012-slow-funds MIT Center for Civic Media blog].

	== Participants ==		== Participants ==

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 {{TOC right}}
-What is the Slow Funds movement? Is it like the Slow Foods movement?
+== Participants ==
 [[category:Monday]]
 [[category:Meta]]