Adam

 Dance Off Central: Challenge your friends to an online Dance Off!

Location: Burbank, California

I want to see this used as an international conflict resolution tool: Red Sox vs. Yankees!  Shiites vs. Sunnis!  Me vs. YOU!

Alice

 No More Hurting People

Location: Halifax, Nova Scotia

A great way to support the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing.

Bosco

 Control Tower – Big, Interactive art at Burning Man 2013

Location: Reno, Nevada

Burning Man art project – from the same folks who brought us the Temple of Transition in 2011. It will be awesome! Nuf said.

Bre

 Detroit Achievement Academy: Opening An Amazing Charter School in Detroit

Location: Berkeley, California

Bret

 Empower Young Widows in India

Location: Boston, Massachusetts

This campaign really speaks to the core of Indiegogo…help empower widows in India to make a living and a place for themselves in Indian society.

Praveen Sinha

Praveen is a software engineer and all around hacker living in San Francisco. He is passionate about up and coming technology and social justice.  Among other things, he is a microtrustee of San Francisco Awesome Foundation, a founding member of Liberating Ourselves Locally, and can also often be found at the Noisebridge hacker collective in the Mission.

How did you first find out about crowdfunding/Indiegogo?

I first found out about crowdfunding, when my friend and artist/entrepreneur Jerry Paffendorf was able to raise enough money to erect a statue of Robocop in Detroit.  Since then I saw a number of Burning Man related projects being successfully funded through Indiegogo.

What motivates you to be a part of a campaign as a contributor?

I have a couple of reasons for contributing to campaigns:

• One of the big reasons is mutual aid for friends and community projects.  I am lucky to live in an amazingly creative place, and am surrounded smart and talented people that I want to support.
• I often give to projects and people that are a little outside the mainstream view, and are often marginalized and in need of support.
• Finally, I love getting an edge on bleeding edge tech that is up and coming and get a sneak peak through project rewards.

Could you choose one or two campaigns you’ve contributed to and share why you liked these campaigns and supported them?

Blow the whistle on Stop and Whistle was a really creative protest to draw attention to racial profiling in Brooklyn.   Even though I didn’t live there, this was a community based response to a bad policing policy that had the threat of going national.  To get a protest like this off the ground would be very difficult before crowdfunding.

The Temple of Transition is a centerpiece Burning Man project.  I go to Burning Man year after year, and the Temple is a big reason why.  I am very grateful to be able to support a project like this.

MuBiome is doing gut biome sequencing.  That is just hella sexy and who doesn’t want their intestinal flora sequenced?

Have you experienced any serendipity as a result of contributing to crowdfunding campaigns?

I have been able to meet cool people through rewards like t-shirts, which publicly indicated who I crowd funded.  It’s also a really great feeling to meet someone who is heading up a project that you have never met before and be like “I crowdfunded you!  You are awesome!”.

What would you raise money for if you ran a campaign?

We will be crowdfunding soon for Liberating Ourselves Locally — this is a hacker/maker/diyspace in East Oakland that is dedicated to advancing STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math) and entrepreneurism in communities of women, people of color, low income, etc. in a grassroots bottom up fashion.

Thank you to Praveen for helping the dreams of others come to life! If you’re interested in helping too, check out some of our Popular Campaigns!

Frank Moore: Mending the Line

 Frank Moore: Mending the Line

Location: Portland, Oregon

“Indiegogo proved to be a platform through which we could not only raise money, but demonstrate our intent, our credibility, and our professionalism. This presentation allowed us to recruit additional sponsors outside of Indiegogo who could see the project was legitimate and supported by hundreds.” -John Waller

Wattio: live in a smarthome

 Wattio: live in a smarthome

Location: San Sebastian, Spain

INDIALUCIA – Acatao – the NEW album!

 INDIALUCIA – Acatao – the NEW album!

Location: Tychy, Poland

“From the very first hours of the campaign we received amazing support, loads of positive energy and inspiration sent to us from all over the world! This experience not only gave us the money we needed, but above all motivation to make something unique for all those who believed in us and our album!” -Miguel Czachowski

LIVE FROM UB

 LIVE FROM UB: A Documentary Film About Mongolian Rock

Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

“Using a platform like Indiegogo not only enabled me to reach my financial goal, but it helped me reach an entire new group of people and expand my audience. I was able to build a community around my campaign that I will turn to throughout the editing process of my film and upon completion.” -Lauren Knapp

Help My Mom To Fight Against Cancer

 Help My Mom To Fight Against Cancer

Location: San Salvador, El Salvador

“Charity evolves with the crowdsourcing power of Indiegogo, is amazing how this platform helps me to make a common ground for the people who had the same Cancer problem and decide to help me.” -Bayron Galán

Do you have an Indiegogo campaign story that you’d like to share with us? Email us at stories@indiegogo.com! Interested in starting a campaign? Find out more and get started here! 

Mother’s Day is an opportunity to sing the praises of the world’s often unsung heroes, to celebrate the women who have positively impacted our lives and done so without ever expecting anything in return. When you start trying to think about everything that goes into being a mom, it’s hard to believe that we only have one day a year dedicated to them — at Indiegogo, we’re more into the idea of Mother’s Year.

This Mother’s Day, we’d like to not only say THANK YOU to our own moms, but also to all those around the world who want nothing but the best for their children. Moms are all about empowering their children to succeed and make a difference, so we wanted to highlight some past and present Indiegogo campaigns that are all about empowering moms:

Lalabu – A Better Baby Carrier

Lalabu – A Better Baby Carrier

Move over Baby Bjorn! This nursing top has a kangaroo pouch to safely carry your baby wherever you go! Supporting Lalabu also means you’ll be supporting exploited women in Atlanta and microfinance efforts for women in Africa.

Mother’s Day Orphans Over Orchids

Mother’s Day Orphans Over Orchids

This campaign encourages people to support an orphanage in India in honor of mothers in lieu of traditional Mother’s Day gifts like flowers. For as little as $25, you could feed a child for a month!

The Flanik Family Infant Adoption

The Flanik Family Infant Adoption

The Flanik’s are on the road to adoption, but even after taking out a loan, they are still unable to cover all of the high costs of the adoption process. They’re running a campaign to make up the difference and realize their dream of raising a child.

BEING MOM with Sarah Ripard: TV Talk Show

BEING MOM with Sarah Ripard: TV Talk Show

Sarah Ripard is creating a talk show called, “Being Mom,” which focuses on the current issues and ideas of the parenting world.

Natural Resources

Natural Resources – pregnancy, childbirth and early parenting center

When Natural Resources fell on hard times after nearly 25 years of being a Bay Area parenting destination, the crowd helped raise nearly $50,000 to keep its doors open and provide future generations of parents with the resources and tools they need.

Let’s Fund the Mom Gets a Business Conference!

Let’s Fund the Mom Gets a Business Conference!

“Mom Gets A Life” founder, Patty Lennon, ran a campaign to fund the Mom Gets A Business Conference — an opportunity to empower stay-at-home moms with the secrets of entrepreneurship.

A mother’s story

A mother’s story

Photographer Daylin Paul tells the moving story of Maw, who, while living a difficult life in rural Thailand and caring for her son, discovered that she was HIV-positive.

Taking My Parents to Burning Man: a Black Rock-umentary!

Taking My Parents to Burning Man: a Black Rock-umentary!

Burning Man is a festival known for self-exploration, boundless creativity, pyromania, and dust storms — not parents. However, Spry Bry (Bryant Boesen) decided to open his mom and dad’s eyes to that desert world — and record the whole thing.

Give Mom the Vacation She Deserves

Give Mom the Vacation She Deserves

After watching her mother persevere through her brother’s fight against cancer, this concerned daughter decided to send her mom on a vacation.

How would you empower mothers around the world through crowdfunding? Tell us in the comments!

Adam

 Help Essmart open our second hub in southern India!

Location: Pollachi, India

Harvard!  MIT!  Southern India!  Technology Distribution!  Amazing.  How else can I make a positive impact in Erode, Tamil Nadu?

Alice

 Bakongo a Social Summer Camp

Location: Bogotá, Columbia

This is a great way to give back to children in Bogota, Colombia. This camp helps children in need cope with their problems and allows them to just be kids!

Andrew

 Save Our Sloths

Location: Limon, Costa Rica

Sloths make me incredibly happy, and I hope the crowd can help protect these little guys in Costa Rica!

Bre

 LivelyHoods: creating jobs for youth in Kenyan slums

Location: Nairobi, Kenya

LivelyHoods runs a retail shop for >65 youth sales representatives to sell healthy goods in Kenya.  The model brings high quality products to the community and gives the youth a sustainable model for economic success.  With her campaign to launch her second shop, Maria’s going far beyond band-aids, both figuratively….and literally!

Bret

 At Home Campaign

Location: Chicago, Illinois

These activists are using film, social media, and a smartphone game to combat homelessness in our communities.  Let’s help empower the homeless by giving them a voice!

Breakfasts in bed, cards, flowers, and phone calls — these are the small tokens of appreciation that are usually associated with the celebration of the big job of being a mom. Though part of the reasons we love moms is that they are big promoters of “It’s the Thought that Counts,” we are still focused on finding that right gift for our moms, grandmothers, or the mothers of our children.

Some of us at Indiegogo are still trying to explain the concept of “crowdfunding” to our moms, but we think that, this year, supporting a crowdfunding campaign in honor of mom might be a great gift idea. “Hey Mom, you helped support someone’s dream.” Plus, she’ll get an awesome perk!

Below are some campaigns that we think that moms might like. Have more ideas? Share them in the comments!

Kinsa Smart Thermometer

Kinsa Smart Thermometer: a simple tool to track and stop the spread of disease

Come cold season, this smartphone-connecting thermometer will be a powerful new tool in the belt of any Supermom.

Mothers Day Orphans Over Orchids

Mothers Day Orphans Over Orchids

In honor of Mother’s Day, The Miracle Foundation — a nonprofit organization — is raising $100,000 for an orphanage in India. Their efforts to help the lives of 100 children is nearing $80,000, but time is running out!

Culination

Culination

The Food Network is great, but entertainment comes before education. The Culination app combines the visual experience of TV with the practicality of a cookbook to help anyone become a top chef.

G3Box: Ship a Maternity Clinic to Kenya

G3Box: Ship a Maternity Clinic to Kenya

The G3 team is tackling the issue of poor maternal health in Kenya by creating hygienic clinics inside shipping containers — and they are raising funds to ship their first unit to Africa. Check out their special Mother’s Day perk!

Knix Wear: It’s time your underwear did more

After an eye-opening conversation with her mom (a physician), Joanna Griffiths began developing the idea behind Knix — underwear that actually addresses women’s needs.

Knix Wear: It’s time your underwear did more

The Seal: A Wearable Swim Monitoring and Drowning Detection System

The Seal: A Wearable Swim Monitoring and Drowning Detection System

Both a fun and dangerous place, a swimming pool can be a mom’s best friend and worst enemy. The Seal was designed to allow parents and lifeguards to monitor the behavior of kids when they’re in the water and alert them at the first signs of trouble.

Equals in Print

Equals in Print

Miya Hirabayashi and Elisabeth Thurston Fraser started the Equals Project as an online platform to publish work by up-and-coming, women essayists and photographers. Now, they want to make the leap to print and are using crowdfunding as their launchpad.

Alipato Project

Alipato Project

Berkeley Law alumnus Tia Katrina Taruc Canlas founded the Alipato Project to provide nonprofit legal counsel to female victims of domestic abuse who want to pursue legal action against their batterers. You can help be an “alipato” — a spark that spreads the fire — by supporting her inspiring campaign.

If you ran a campaign for your mom, what would it be about? Tell us in the comments and start here! 

Ali’s Power Hour Freedom Victory Tour

 Ali’s Power Hour Freedom Victory Tour

Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

“My Indiegogo campaign allowed me to find support and fans that I never knew I had. I’m now embarking on a national tour with the confidence that I have a bunch of people out their that believe in me and are ready to join in the fun at my concerts.” -Ali Spagnola

MAKE IT HISTORY

 MAKE IT HISTORY

Location: Detroit, Michigan

Grain Elevator Rock Climbing Center!

 Grain Elevator Rock Climbing Center!

Location: Buffalo, New York

“We were totally humbled by the vast reach of our campaign, and the tremendous amount of support that snowballed in the community.” -Jason Schwinger

I Heart Jenny

 I Heart Jenny

Location: Brooklyn, New York

“Our Indiegogo campaign went far beyond just funding; it helped us establish a tangible audience for our film, it gave us a sounding board, and a plethora of supporters! Our campaign gave us momentum that I truly believe we couldn’t of gotten anywhere else.” -Blake Babbitt

Send ‘That’s Her Way’ to Ireland

 Send ‘That’s Her Way’ to Ireland

Location: Astoria, New York

“We’ll be heading to the Emerald Isle with a new play because of the response to our Indiegogo campaign; it drew a great response and 100 funders helped us achieve over 100% of our goal.” -Emerging Artists Theatre

Do you have an Indiegogo campaign story that you’d like to share with us? Email us at stories@indiegogo.com! Interested in starting a campaign? Find out more and get started here! 

On our site, the basic unit of a “share” is what we call a “referral.” In each campaign’s Share Bar (pictured below), logged-in Indiegogo users can grab a unique link to the campaign, share with others, and keep track of the number of visitors they bring to the page (a.k.a. “referrals”). Campaigners can also track this referral traffic to their campaigns via the Campaign Dashboard.

Our Insights team dug deeper into our data, and perhaps unsurprisingly, there is a strong positive relationship between the number of referrals a campaign has and the amount of funds raised (as well as percentage of goal raised). The bottom line: Sharing is caring for a crowdfunding campaign, and the more, the merrier. Still, referrals are not just numbers — there are real people on the other end of them. Therefore, you want to be pursuing quality leads through referrals by connecting with like-minded and similarly passionate audiences, rather than simply spamming the highest number of eyeballs possible.

Given the importance of referrals and the ability to track them, we encourage campaigners who are looking to add further momentum to their campaigns to try out a Referral Contest. This gamifies your marketing by giving a direct incentive to your contributors to share the campaign — i.e. “The person who is able to refer the most contributors to my campaign will receive X!” There are a number of ways of running a Referral Contest, and we’ve seen campaigners use a variety of creative point systems.

For example, the Robot Dragonfly campaign ran a number of contests that focused heavily on media referrals, incentivising their contributors to get the word out to bloggers and larger media outlets:

Here’s a graph of their funding over the life of the campaign — can you see where their referral contests started paying off?

Given that the potential rewards for participating in the game often had values above $150, there was clear incentive for people to put out the small, extra effort to share the campaign. This approach had a significant impact for Robot Dragonfly — not only in terms of contributions, but also in terms of general awareness that was garnered via the extra press. For campaigns centered around small businesses, products, or arts projects that will want to have a customer base or audience beyond the campaign, this type of referral game can go a long way.

Another campaign that was able to successfully run a referral contest was Game Golf, who centered the game around link sharing, using the stats in the dashboard to track activity:

And here’s what the Indiegogo Campaign Dashboard looks like, where campaigners can track referrals:

Though product-based campaigns have been particularly successful with Referral Contests, there’s little reason other types of campaigns can’t leverage this strategy. And, whether or not you decide to run a content, basic referrals are important for all crowdfunding campaigns. With the sharing tools at your fingertips, there are nearly limitless ways to get your campaign out there and encourage people to contribute — get creative!

Summary:

• Sharing is one key to crowdfunding success
• Indiegogo provides campaigners with tools to track referrals
• Get creative with how you share your campaign and how you encourage others to share

Have another creative way of encouraging others to share your crowdfunding campaign? Tell us about it in the comments! 

Adam

 If Only You Knew What Your Body Knows

Location: Toronto, Canada

Do I love the message more, or campaigner Philip Shepherd’s hypnotic voice?

Alice

 Vita-V: World’s First Organic Super Fruit Drink with Baobab

Location: Chicago, Illinois

This is a great way to stay healthy and help support sustainable economies in Africa at the same time!

Ben

 Help ShitHarperDid.ca kick the Harper Government Right in the TV

Location: Vancouver, Canada

Canadian comedians decided to take political action and meet with surprising success? I’m sold.

Bre

 OLA: Create Change With Snapbacks

Location: Berkeley, California

Bret

 Dawn Patrol Truck – Mobile Surf Shop and Food Truck

Location: Venice, California

Surf wax, key storage, breakfast burritos…all on demand at your favorite surf spot!  What more could a surfer want?

Business ideas that succeed in the real world are not necessarily those with the most financial backing or aesthetic execution, but instead those that accurately identify a shortcoming or vacuum in a given market and gain traction while trying to improve upon these issues. The same is often true with crowdfunding campaigns. Flashiness is not a guaranteed recipe for success — the idea alone must first resonate with audiences. In fact, being able to transform ideas into action — like starting a business — is one of the core essences of crowdfunding.

Elyse Petersen’s idea was to create a way to connect small tea farmers around the world more directly with their consumers, thus removing the price-slashing power of bulk distributors. She had developed this idea (called Tealet) after being confronted with market conditions by working for a tea manufacturer in Hawaii and interning at a Japanese tea farm.

Wanting to grow this business concept, she turned to crowdfunding to initiate her first run of a subscription service and raise funds necessary to improve Tealet’s website.

Elyse and her co-founder, Jane Gonsowski’s, Indiegogo campaign is proof-positive that, as a small business starter, you don’t need an extravagant (or any) budget to find crowdfunding success. They relied on the strength of their idea and personal testimony to connect with tea lovers around the world. This clearly resonated with the crowd — 101 of whom, from 9 different countries, helped Tealet hit and exceed their goal.

Their goal itself leads to another important lesson from the campaign. Set at $5,000, it certainly was nowhere near the size of some campaigns seeking six figures or more in funding. This was a conscious decision by the campaigners to use crowdfunding as a way of incrementally growing their business with smaller infusions of capital — rather than completely changing their business overnight through a large amount of cash. Using this approach, entrepreneurs can set realistic funding goals that allow them to move their businesses forward, instead of building a plan that is contingent on one lump sum.

With the success of their campaign, Tealet has been able to effectively implement their funding to scale up their business, and not only positively impact the lives of tea farmers, but also bring great tea to a global community of connoisseurs.

Wanting to know more about this unique, entrepreneurial application of crowdfunding, we spoke with Tealet co-founder Elyse:

Why did you decide to get involved in the tea industry?

I never made a proactive decision to get involved in the tea industry, the tea industry decided to get involved with me. I am a food scientist and the first job I got when I moved to Hawaii was with the world’s largest tea manufacturer. I left this job for an MBA and the first internship I did was with the state studying the market feasibility of a Hawaii Grown Tea industry and my final internship was with on a tea farm in Japan.

How did you develop the idea behind Tealet?

I developed the idea for Tealet while I was doing the internship on the tea farm in Japan. I connected with a group of talented tea growers around the world that were making amazing teas that they wanted to share with the US. The idea was simple; help these growers get their tea to the US.

Why did you decide to turn to crowdfunding? How did you find out about Indiegogo?

We turned to crowdfunding because we knew how to connect with a network of passionate tea lovers that would love these teas but there were some deterring startup costs for us to bring in the first teas to the US. We turned to Indiegogo because of the Flexible Funding and the appropriate fit with our project versus other platforms.

What planning went into your campaign?

Most of our planning was on how to tell our story through video. We didn’t have a big budget for the video so we knew story would be key. We also spent a significant amount of time to calculate our startup costs and determine our perk levels appropriately so we could execute a successful campaign.

What were some non-monetary benefits and lasting impacts of your crowdfunding campaign?

The biggest non-monetary benefit of crowdfunding is the community that is built during the process. We understand that not everyone would have the funds to give or may not be tea drinkers, but it gave them the opportunity to rally around our cause. The foundation of our current community is made up of the people we met during the campaign.

What’s happened since your campaign ended?

Within 24 hours after our campaign we fulfilled our first orders and have been going ever since. In October 2012 we were accepted into the 500 Startups accelerator in Silicon Valley where we launched our current website and started raising money to take the business to the next level. We then moved back to Hawaii and joined the Blue Startups accelerator where we began building a wholesale platform for tea retailers to purchase our growers’ teas in bulk.

What’s your best piece of advice for future crowdfunders?

My best advice is for you to take crowdfunding seriously and to treat it like a business. You may be doing a campaign for a pet project but you should take this opportunity to begin something meaningful that you can make a major part of your life. There is a future for your project beyond the campaign, so prepare for it. Raising the largest amount of funds is not the goal, the campaign should be viewed as a launching pad for a bright future.

What’s next for Tealet?

We will be launching the wholesale platform to the public in June 2013. We will continue to offer a unique exploration around the world through tea for our retail customers and have many more exciting growers to add to our network from Africa, Europe, and the US.

What’s an idea you’d like to bring to life? Tell us in the comments and subscribe to our newsletter  for crowdfunding inspiration!