Crowd funding - KICKSTARTER made it easy

In just six years, more than 250,000 ideas have sought community and existence through Kickstarter. Some never got out of the gate. Many did. There have been Academy Award and GRAMMY wins; deals with book publishers, record labels, movie studios, and tech companies; tens of thousands of performances and concerts; and millions of rewards in backers’ mailboxes.

The Kickstarter community plays a meaningful role in stimulating the creative economy. But how meaningful? And in what ways? These are things we want to better understand.

Over the last several months, Kickstarter has been collaborating with a researcher from the University of Pennsylvania to explore this further. Professor Ethan Mollick has been studying Kickstarter independently for several years, and with our support, he’s now created two surveys designed to produce a clearer picture of the outcomes of projects on Kickstarter, and the impact they have on culture and the economy.

We have recently begun to reach out to you, the Kickstarter community, with an invitation to take these surveys. One is for a sample of project creators. The other is for a sample of project backers. If you are a recipient of one of these surveys, we hope you take the time to participate. Your insights will play a very important role in helping all of us better understand the impact of the Kickstarter community, and what it means for creative communities around the world. And later in the year we will share what he’s learned.