March 5, 2016
A day of workshopping, brainstorming, and sharing to help you jump-start your crowdfunding experience.
Cindy Wu from Experiment and Aurora Thornhill, the former Science Lead at Kickstarter, will lead you through a day of collaboration and learning geared to help you jump-start your crowdfunding journey.
Schedule
09:00 – Breakfast
10:00 – Intro to Kickstarter and Experiment
Cindy and Aurora will give you a general rundown of Kickstarter and Experiment. We’ll go over stats for each platform, the funding models they use, and how they fit into the larger ecosystem of science funding.
10:45 – How to prepare for crowdfunding
Crowdfunding isn’t always easy! We’ll talk about strategies for coming up with a timeline and preparation checklist depending on scope of project and platform.
11:15 – What are you working on?
Everyone who wants to will get the opportunity to share what they’re working on with the group, or within smaller groups if attendance is high.
12:00 – Lunch
Hooray for food! During lunch there will be 1 short optional session
How to navigate bureaucratic waters
For those working out of or for institutions, there’s sometimes complications and bureaucratic red tape to cut through. Cindy will host a discussion on tips to negotiating that territory.
13:00 – What’s your story?
A solid story is the backbone of any successful crowdfunding project. It’s the thread that ties your video, rewards (if you’re using a platform like Kickstarter) and project description together. We’ll dig into tips on how to craft compelling narratives and messaging.
13:45 – Stories from peers
Are there alternative models for certain science projects to achieve sustainability? Felix Stähli, Co-founder of the Impact Hub Geneva and David Ott from the Global Humanitarian Lab will share their recent experience.
14:15 – Q&A
What’s it like to run a crowdfunding campaign? We’ll hear from others who have run crowdfunding campaigns in a fireside chat style discussion.
15:00 – End of day presentations and feedback
Those who’d like to, can have 3 minutes to present their projects to the group . This is an opportunity to get feedback and discuss any takeaways or outstanding questions you have regarding your project.
17:00 Happy Hour
(in Geneva)
What would a day of learning and toiling be without drinks and good conversation with new friends and colleagues?