Benefits, Resources, and Examples for Crowdfunding Your Research & Educational Efforts
Crowdfunding for educational purposes and the common good is not a new idea. However, with education and research accessibility at an interesting crossroads, this form of funding for the collective good could become more common. Consider where we are today when college tuitions are at an all time high yet Ivy League Schools are offering free courses online at edx.org and similar free educational sites. Where independent research grants are awarded by pharmaceutically backed giants yet holistic healthcare has to rely on its own nimble yet dispersed abilities to successfully fund research and educational content.
It’s an interesting time to examine where much needed public education and research fit into the grand scope of educational online content and who and what are funding this content.
There are countless multi-billion dollar corporations with a huge financial capacity to create their own misleading educational platforms and frame them as valid. So we, the people, need to create more clever ways to fund the educational platforms for the leaders and fields that are integral to humanity and include holistic health, environmental technologies, and social justice advocacy.
It is vital, necessary, even revolutionary, to take your expertise and share your knowledge with your community, your audience, and the world.
There are many opinions of crowdfunding, especially when you consider the vast array of randomness that people have decided to raise money for, like the cringe-worthy efforts of some people to crowdfund their “much needed” trip to Las Vegas.
But consider the most honorable reasons society could be using crowdfunding. Consider how you might fit into this honorable reason as a vital researcher and/or educator in your specialized field. Then let me propose to you, small business owner, with your specialty practice, highly helpful service, or uniquely genius products, that crowdfunding your educational platform could be an invaluable tool to spread your message. Education is the cornerstone of how your audience makes decisions. What would the world be like with YOU as the option? Without YOU as the expert? Without your business, practice, or clinic as an Educator not just in your field but for your field? Here is a list of 8 crowdfunding sites that can help you fund your dream educational and research projects!
1. Experiment
2. Indiegogo
3. RocketHub
4. GoFundMe
5. Razoo
6. Crowdrise
7. Crowdfunder
8. Kickstarter
Benefits to Crowdfunding:
- You don’t have to wait for payment of your published scholarly articles or published books. If you are using crowdfunding, your goal is to make your educational material accessible to people, so you don’t have to sell it on platforms like JSTOR or Google Scholar. Though these tools are valuable and amazing, they are not available for free, nor are they academically accessible to the general population. Your produced content was paid for by the people, so give it to them and you won’t be waiting around to get paid for this work on a residual income basis.
- Get your research funded! Did you know that there are sites now set up to crowdfund research? One of them is Experiment.com. In addition to raising the money you need for important research, you will have access to a support network of professionals helping you plan out and create milestones to complete your much-needed work.
- Create hype and excitement around your research, education, or project by adding a data dashboard to your site that projects live updates when you have donations, shares the research or educational tools those funds are going to, and gives a live ‘thank you’ to donors on your crowdfund dashboard. This will allow people to get excited about what they are contributing to. It’s exciting to feel like you’re a part of something groundbreaking and bigger than you are, something that will live on and benefits future generations.
Example 1: Crowdfunding your Specialty Clinic’s Research
To give this idea some meat, let’s say you’re a practitioner of some particular holistic healthcare practice and you find that when speaking to random people about your work that they often generalize it into something else, something incorrect. You see a huge lack of education and huge misconceptions about your field of practice. Are there any studies, hypothesis, or data you collect that you can develop research on? Why not develop your research and submit it to the ‘go fund me’ of research and experiments, Experiment.com? The have generated over $7 million dollars in funding for over 600 research projects. So yes, now start conceptualizing that YOU can be contributing to the much-needed research, education, and content that will shift public perception to a deeper understanding of their health options.
Example 2: Crowdfunding for PSA Style Education for Victims of Abuse
You’re an attorney that practices law in an area that carries a lot of shame for your clients. It’s difficult to discuss and normalize the experience of victims of child abuse, sexual assault, and elder abuse. Many times this shame keeps victims in the closet of their nightmare experiences. You know that your job isn’t just about supporting your own clients but also creating a general space where any victims of violent crimes can feel safe to come forward. So you want to develop educational and emotionally supportive content to support people who experience these atrocities. Why not crowdfund this amazing and much-needed endeavor? You can develop it as a special page on your website where interested, supportive, and privileged individuals can donate to your important educational agenda. You can start a Go Fund Me specifically for creating your own form of education whether it be to speak at schools, retirement homes, or developing digital content and disseminating on places where people won’t feel ashamed to view it. Whatever your act of education, you can use the interest of your community to generate the funds necessary.
So, when your budget isn’t holding you back from making waves in the world for the better, what exactly will you do? Who will you open your practice and heart to that will join forces with you to conduct, finance, and execute learning for the masses? There are so many people IN desperate NEED of the information, compassion, and truth that you have in your brilliant mind, please do the world a favor and share it!
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