Fundraising Fuels Emotions

Fundraising Fuels Emotions

Since I created a whole category on this blog for my Jamaica documentary I thought I’d write a series of posts about the process from the very start, which would be the fundraising efforts and the controversy or just plain conversation that goes along with it.  I’ve learned a lot during the first week of trying to round up contributors and thought I’d share it all and maybe help others who may go down this road in the future.

The very first thing I needed was a fundraising platform, meaning an online community that encourages all sorts of people in all sorts of fundraising campaigns. When I looked around and asked around the overwhelming response was to go with a site called Kickstarter but that idea was shot down immediately by discrimination (it’s not my fault I was born in Canada!). The simple fact that I’m Canadian made me ineligible because you need a US bank account and SSN to qualify. The search continued until I found another blogger complaining about the same thing and her blog post led me to Kapipal. It’s an international fundraising platform where anyone with a Paypal account can register and begin their campaign. If you ever decide to go the Kapipal route this is what your campaign would look like.

The second thing I’ve discovered is that there are a LOT of supporters hiding in the shadows! This has been the most pleasant surprise for me since my donations were kicked off by someone I’d never even heard of before but she’s been following my blog for a long time. She might not know it but this Absolute Travel Addict started my day with pure inspiration that morning and I’m grateful to her for that. Her initiative got the ball rolling and I’ve since received several more contributions from friends, followers and other unexpected sources.  I even get to meet one secret follower in person next week for her contribution!

And last but not least within this first week of fundraising I’ve discovered people have a wide range of emotions and opinions about it, some good and some not so good. But in defense of the not-so-good opinions I’ve learned a lot about what people think and see from the outside. I sit here and wonder why EVERYONE isn’t donating to my awesome Jamaica documentary but I was enlightened today after a running conversation about it on my travel forum. Not everyone believes in the same things, not everyone has strong feelings about what their friends are doing and some are just plain not interested! Like when you get a telemarketing phone call and you hang up before they even tell you what they’re selling. At first I felt slightly miffed about it until I participated through the whole forum thread and one girl just put it like this; “You will have people who just will and people who just won’t and that’s okay”. And she was right. If someone is trying to sell me ice and I live in the North Pole I’m just not going to buy it.

So with 42 days to go until my fundraising deadline I’d like to thank ALL of you who’ve contributed so far and all of you who’ve helped spread the word! I’m at 3.23% of my goal and it’s exciting! That might not sound like much but it’s something! Nine people so far believe in me enough to put in their two cents (actual amounts are more than two cents!).

To know more about my project you can read about it HERE.