So you want to get funding for your next project, there seems to be a new trend starting and a lot of people using the new method of crowd sourcing. ‘Kickstarter’ seems to be one of the more popular sites for doing this and a couple of friend of mine Yann & Eira have just started a campaign for their latest short ‘Scars’

‘Scars is a 15 to 20 minute short film that tells the story of two Pakistani Muslim women living in the United Kingdom, Zuhra and Nafeesa. It is the struggle that confronts a single mother after her daughter is kidnapped by her ex-husband and taken to Pakistan. Zuhra is faced with major decisions, she is afraid of abandoning her young son in the UK, to return to Pakistan to retrieve her daughter. There are also money problems, immigrant Visa issues and the risk of being confronted by her ex-husband. Nafeesa, her best friend, a young exile disfigured from an acid attack during an abusive relationship, tries to help find a solution. These two courageous women have one thing in common, faith in Islam.’

Yann & Eira are a couple of very talented film makers got in contact with me to ask me to share there top 3 tips for creating a successful crowd sourcing campaign.

• To start off you basically have to have a project in mind. Create a video describing the project.

“Make a professional video, the video represents you. From what I've seen two kinds of videos work well: the trendy cool and the genuine and minimalist depending on your project. The trendy cool video is a video you'll watch because it's enjoyable, entertaining, funny, it's the video that people will want to share on social networks just because of its entertaining value. The other video is a brief sincere explanation of the project with good production values and as much information as possible in less than 3 minutes”

• Choosing the rewards is an important part too, 8 to 12 different levels of rewards is what's recommended

''Kickstarter isn’t charity: we champion exchanges that are a mix of commerce and patronage, and the numbers bear this out. To date the most popular pledge amount is $25 and the average pledge is around $70. Small amounts are where it’s at: projects without a reward of $20 or less succeed 28% of the time, while projects with a reward of $20 or less succeed 45% of the time.

Add a £1 pledge because some people can't afford to give much. By adding this pledge level you can open the doors to a lot of little donations. The more donations you get the more popular your project is and the more exposure you get.” 

• Now that your campaign is ready you need to create an ''online launch party

“To do so you need to contact everyone you know and more! You need to get as many donations as you can during the first day of the campaign, If you can get 10-15% of your total goal during the first day you are good, this will bring good exposure to the project and bigger chances to get staff picked. You need to create a momentum before the launch of the project so everyone is aware of it and ready to donate, don't forget to create twitter and Facebook accounts and possibly a website for your project. Once the project is launched the work really starts! You need to spend most of your day contacting people, tweeting, sending emails; your project needs to be in Google search results. Contact journalists, writers, bloggers and anyone that could be interested in the subject you're working on.”

So that’s their top 3 tips for creating a successful campaign. Also to bear in mind:

“Funding can last anywhere from one to 60 days, however a longer duration is not necessarily better. Statistically, projects lasting 30 days or less have our highest success rates. A Kickstarter project takes a lot of work to run, and shorter projects set a tone of confidence and help motivate your backers to join the party. Longer durations incite less urgency, encourage procrastination, and tend to fizzle out.

“A video is by far the best way to get a feel for the emotions, motivations, and character of a project. It’s a demonstration of effort and a good predictor of success. Projects with videos succeed at a much higher rate than those without (50% vs. 30%).”

So if your interesting in helping Yann and Eira out then head over to the Kickstarter page and donate now!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/60480626/scars-a-film-about-women

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ScarsTheFilm

Website: http://cargocollective.com/scarsthefilm