Launched on April 28, 2009 in Brooklyn, New York, Kickstarter is a funding platform for creative projects — everything from films, games, and music to art, design, and technology. Kickstarter helps artists, musicians, filmmakers, designers, and other creators find the resources and support they need to make their ideas a reality. Kickstarter is an enormous global community built around creativity and creative projects. Over 10 million people, from every continent on earth, have backed a Kickstarter project. Kickstarter is an independent, founder-controlled company of 161 people working together in an old pencil factory in New York City. The company consists of developers, designers, support specialists, writers, musicians, painters, poets, gamers, robot-builders. To date, tens of thousands of creative projects — big and small — have come to life with the support of the Kickstarter community. Every artist, filmmaker, designer, developer, and creator on Kickstarter has complete creative control over their work — and the opportunity to share it with a vibrant community of backers.
“Kickstarter is one of those platforms that gives you space to work with people who know you, love you, and support you.” — De La Soul
Thousands of creative projects are funding on Kickstarter at any given moment. Each project is independently created and crafted by the person behind it. The filmmakers, musicians, artists, and designers you see on Kickstarter have complete control and responsibility over their projects. They spend weeks building their project pages, shooting their videos, and brainstorming what rewards to offer backers. When they’re ready, creators launch their project and share it with their community. Every project creator sets their project’s funding goal and deadline. If people like the project, they can pledge money to make it happen. If the project succeeds in reaching its funding goal, all backers’ credit cards are charged when time expires. If the project falls short, no one is charged. Funding on Kickstarter is all-or-nothing. If a project is successfully funded, Kickstarter applies a 5% fee to the funds collected. All pledges are processed securely by our third-party payments partner, Stripe. These payment processing fees work out to roughly 3-5%. If the project does not reach its funding goal, there are no fees.
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The company’s story, as told by founder Perry Chen, is that “I was living in New Orleans in late 2001 and I wanted to bring a pair of DJs down to play a show during the 2002 Jazz Fest. I found a great venue and reached out to their management, but in the end the show never happened—it was just too much money…”
Kickstarter was built to help bring creative projects to life. The company’s success is measured by how well that mission is achieved, not by profits. That’s why, in 2015, Kickstarter became a Benefit Corporation, which is a for-profit company that is obligated to consider the impact of its decisions on society, not only shareholders. Radically, positive impact on society becomes part of a Benefit Corporation’s legally defined goals. When a company becomes a Benefit Corporation, it can choose to make further commitments. Since its first launch, on April 28, 2009, 17 million people have backed a project, $4.4 billion has been pledged, and 166,038 projects have been successfully funded with Kickstarter’s help.
Find more about the company on their website:https://www.kickstarter.com/
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