Do you dream of using crowdfunding to support a writing or research project that you could never tackle by yourself?
Today on the Morning Media Menu, journalist and literary blogger Edward Champion introduced his Indiegogo campaign to raise money to take and document 3,000-mile walk across the country. He also talked about his dispatches from the roadand shared advice for creating perks for your campaign. Here’s an excerpt:
This is, above all, a vicarious experience in which I hope to impart vital knowledge and awareness of the many people who live between Brooklyn and San Francisco who don’t get the kind of massive and detailed attention that this particular project will offer (that other mainstream outlets do not). It’s the kind of thing you can imagine, maybe even five or ten years ago, magazines might have put up money for this. But those days are now gone. This is long, long form journalism and it’s the kind of thing that may only be possible through something like Indiegogo or crowdfunding.
Champion also had some advice for other writers or journalists creating perks for a crowdfunding campaign. He explained:
First off, since I knew this was a fairly excentric and unusual campaign, I had to do these trial walks. I need to give people who want to donate to this a sense of what it’s going to be. And people have been very excited about that … I also wanted to create perks that are distinctly attached to the project. One of the perks I am very fond of is the idea of sending someone a postcard while I’m on the walk from a mailbox somewhere in the country. So that one day, if you donate $25 to the project, you will basically get a postcard from me while I’m on the road. So it adds that little personal touch, but you also get the sense of being there with me.
Press play below to listen to the whole interview…