Funding Curiosity
Why Kickstarter is great for projects, but not for questions.
Kickstarter doesn’t have an official “Science” category, but don’t let that fool you. The Kickstarter community has changed the rules for science, exploration and conservation by creating a whole suite of new tools and technologies that allow us to ask entirely new questions and go places many of us never imagined. I could point to the ArduSat project (now a company called Spire, launching dozens of satellites into space every year) or the Rainforest Connection project (planning their next several expeditions to thwart poachers) or the OpenPCR project (which has been the catalyst for a new DIYBio toolset). The list goes on and on. But more than just make a list, I can attest to the effects firsthand. Our story with OpenROV, an open-source underwater robot, is as improbable and wonderful as I could have imagined.
Three years ago, my friend Eric and I were just two guys in a garage, toiling away on a DIY underwater robot in an effort to explore an underwater cave with rumors of lost gold. But once we shared the project on Kickstarter the project took on a life of its own. Almost instantly, a lonely garage-based project turned into a global community that has been able to push forward at a speed that Eric and I never could have achieved by ourselves. It’s gone beyond the building of the robot, and the collaborative spirit of the project has spilled over into the way we’re exploring. In the past month, since we launched OpenExplorer, we’ve been blown away by the stories of what the tool (as well as the community) has enabled; stories of science, education, and conservation that run the gammut from PhD researchers to high school classrooms and everything in between. Having access to an exploration tool that was previously unattainable means more people asking more questions.
It’s the Long Tail of Curiosity.
Kickstarter showed us the playbook: creative projects of all shapes and sizes can come to life with the support of a committed group of people and just enough money to pull it off. The same is possible for pursuits of curiosity, but the model is a little different. To understand the differences, it’s important to understand the magic of Kickstarter. The first thing to know: it’s not all about the money. As any project creator who’s run a successful Kickstarter campaign will tell you, the money is important, but the awareness and momentum that is created is equally important (sometimes more so). Trumping both the money and the awareness are the people. Kickstarted campaigns are a dizzyingly effective way to connect with other people who want to help. That level of collaboration and support is priceless (and sometimes overwhelming). Ask any creator, and they’ll echo these sentiments.
If you only read the headlines, you’d think the big, million dollar campaigns are what Kickstarter is all about. It’s not. In fact, very few creators get rich (and often times the ones that hit it big run into problems). The bigger story is the thousands of projects that get just enough support — a combination of money, momentum, and people — to bring an idea into the world. Kickstarter cracked the code, in my opinion, by modeling the platform after the emotional life of a creative project.
The Emotional Life of a Creative Project:
The fixed-time nature of the Kickstarter campaign is perfect for this cycle. The project gathers resources — money, supporters, and momentum — in the moment of maximum excitement for the creator. The added resources become the fuel that drives the project through the inevitable dark moments of the creative process.
Pursuits of curiosity don’t work like that. At first, the question holds no promise — it’s unfinished and uncertain. It’s a hunch — more of a path to follow than a idea to shepherd. It’s the reason that many of the most important discoveries in history were accidents. When you go looking, you don’t always know what you’re going to find, if anything at all. Maybe you’ll discover something in the field or after you’ve had the chance to process and interpret the data. Or maybe you won’t find anything more than the next question to follow.
The Emotional Life of Pursued Curiosity
To unlock the Long Tail of Curiosity — in the same way that Kickstarter has for creativity — we need a new model, or many new models. At OpenExplorer, we’re trying a formula we think can work for exploration, field science and conservation:
Inexpensive and Capable Maker Tools + Collaboration + Sharing/Openness = A New Era of Connected Exploration
Building off that hypothesis, we’ve implemented an idea called “Microsponsorships” to give foundations and companies a way to partner with citizen scientists and explorers by providing them with the tools they need to go further or research more. It’s like DonorsChoose for explorers. It’s the bare minimum needed to begin pursuing the question. If, at some point, something important gets discovered or answered — or the expedition team just does a fantastic job sharing the story — then there’s a way for viewers/followers/collaborators to support the project with a financial contribution. It’s not a time sensitive push — because questions can take a long time and you don’t always know what you’re going to find — but a platform designed for thoughtful observation and feedback.
Will it work? Obviously, we hope so, but we have no idea. It takes a whole community — of explorers and scientists, brave foundations and companies, as well as curious and generous onlookers — for an idea like this to work. I invite you to check it out. We’d love to have you contribute to this little corner of the internet.
