We launched BackerKit Crowdfunding last year to better serve you, the community of creators and backers who have joined us in our 10-year journey. Today, we’re thrilled to share that it’s our fastest-growing product to date – and it’s all thanks to you!

As a token of our appreciation, we at BackerKit are investing in you and your next big project.

We’re waiving fees for the first $5,000.00 USD raised in a project you launch on BackerKit Crowdfunding in 2024.*

Simply start and save a new draft project before December 31, 2023 and launch that project in 2024. Signing up and saving a project takes less than 5 minutes.New to BackerKit? Sign up now for free and get access to the most complete crowdfunding platform built for and with the most innovative creators.

*Max savings of $250.00 USD for a successfully funded campaign that has raised $5000.00 USD or more. Savings will be applied after the campaign end date as a waived BackerKit crowdfunding fee. Stripe processing fees will still apply. Offer limited to one (1) campaign launched between Jan 1, 2024 and Dec 31, 2024. Cannot be combined with other credits or offers. Subject to BackerKit Terms of Service. 

The post Save $250 on your 2024 BackerKit project! Sign up by Dec 31st appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

When BackerKit Crowdfunding launched in 2022, we set out to provide a space where backers and creators were able to really unite around a campaign. For the past year, we’ve been excited to witness the level of collaboration and engagement happening on our platform. Just recently, Mini Museum’s supporters joined its creators for a live chat during their Launch Party, where they shared stories, asked questions, and exemplified the type of interaction we love to see. On BackerKit, creators are bringing their passion projects to an enthusiastic community of backers who aren’t just financial supporters. These backers are offering invaluable feedback, conversation, and, at times, even helping shape campaigns.

Among the incredible backers bringing our platform to life, there is an exceptionally dedicated group of people who deserve recognition: the Star Backers. These backers go above and beyond, having pledged their support to multiple BackerKit projects. Their love for crowdfunding and commitment to the creators on our platform is inspiring, and we want to celebrate them.

BackerKit’s Star Backer Program

We’re thrilled to announce a new program we’re kicking off this year to show our gratitude for our Star Backers and reward them. Anyone who backs ten or more projects on BackerKit by the end of 2023 will earn a special digital badge that will be displayed in the BackerKit app, indicating their status as a Star Backer and an indispensable member of the BackerKit community. As an additional token of our appreciation, each Star Backer will also receive a custom enamel pin to celebrate their achievement.

Star Backer Program Details, Terms, and Conditions

• To receive your 2023 Star Backer digital badge and physical enamel pin, you must back ten or more BackerKit Crowdfunding projects by December 31, 2023.
• Anyone who has already backed ten or more BackerKit Crowdfunding projects in 2023 prior to this announcement qualifies for Star Backer status.
• You will be able to see how close you are to becoming a Star Backer by logging into your BackerKit account, going to the User page, and then clicking “View your Profile Page.”
• Pins for 2023 Star Backers will be sent in early 2024.

We have a diverse lineup of projects launching in the next couple of months, so there are still plenty of opportunities for you to support great crowdfunding projects and become a 2023 Star Backer.

This is just the beginning of this program, and we hope to see it grow in the coming years. As we prepare for 2024, the BackerKit team will continue to find new ways to show our appreciation for the backers who are supporting the dreams, passions, and ingenuity of the creator community.

The post Become a 2023 Star Backer appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

At BackerKit, our team is passionate about people’s passions. For ten years, we’ve supported creators in their journey to launch projects and build thriving creative practices and businesses. We’ve developed deep relationships and respect for the people who breathe life into crowdfunding projects, and we are committed to defending their well-being on our platform.

That’s why we are announcing a new policy that aims to address growing concerns regarding ownership of content, ethical sourcing of data, and compensation for the process of creating content.

Creators invest significant time, effort, and resources into their projects. BackerKit’s Trust & Safety team aims to safeguard these endeavors, creating a respectful space for projects and interactions between creators and their backers.

As part of this consideration, BackerKit has committed to a policy that restricts the use of AI-generated content in projects on our crowdfunding platform.

This policy goes into effect on October 4, 2023.

AI-assisted writing, image generation, and video technology are advancing rapidly, as are the discussions surrounding their creative applications. It’s important for us to recognize both the immediate and long-term adverse effects they may pose to the creators and creative communities we serve.

At BackerKit, we’re driven to ensure creators are fairly rewarded for their hard work and creativity. Due to concerns about AI tools using content without proper compensation or permission, we’ll continue to limit their use on our platform until there is a system that can guarantee fairness in sourcing, permission, and compensation.

Example of restricted AI-generated content for an art asset

Image courtesy Simplified

This policy emphasizes that projects on BackerKit cannot include content solely generated by AI tools. All content and assets must first be created by humans.

This doesn’t impact content refined with AI-assisted tools like “generative content fill” or “object replacement” (image editing software functions that help blend or replace selected portions of an image), other standard image adjustment tools (saturation, color, resolution,) or AI language tools that refine human-created text with modifications to spelling, grammar, and syntax.

Software assisted by AI, such as transcribers or video tracking technology are permitted under these guidelines. However, software with the purpose to generate content using AI would not be permitted.

Example of permitted AI tool assistance for an image asset

Image courtesy fxguide

Content on BackerKit that’s solely AI-generated or lacks a minimum requirement of human input may lead to the project being temporarily or permanently denied during the review process. During a review, our Trust & Safety team may contact you to help provide verification that your content is within these guidelines. Violations of this policy after a project has launched could result in content removal, project suspension, or the project being removed.

BackerKit is dedicated to supporting creators, their collaborators, and their communities.

We are committed to building a helpful list of directories and databases to help you find content creators to support your projects. As a starting point, here are some resources sourced from our community: Directory of Illustration, Cartoonists of Color database, Queer Cartoonists database, Disabled Cartoonists database, Women Who Draw.

As part of this policy, BackerKit will also automatically exclude all content uploaded by our creators for their projects from AI training.

By default, BackerKit will hide content from AI data scrapers.

As AI-generation tools evolve, so will the discussion surrounding them and their permissible use. BackerKit puts its creators first, and we will continue to gather feedback and refine our policy and processes in order to help foster a supportive community of creators, artists, and backers.

If you have any questions or feedback about our new AI policy, please contact our Trust and Safety team at trustandsafety@backerkit.com. If you are unsure if the content for your project meets these guidelines, please do not hesitate to get in touch with our team at crowdfunding@backerkit.com so that we may assist further.

The post BackerKit Stands With Creators on AI appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

BackerKit is heading to Germany for Spiel Essen 2023 — the world’s largest tabletop games convention featuring 4 days of pure gaming joy. We’re packing extra light so we can bring home as much as we possibly can. 

We’re showing up big from October 5th-8th in exhibit hall 4 at Booth #4D113. Be sure to stop by and play exciting demos throughout the show, take part in our fun “Crowdfunding Passport” activity, and to learn more about crowdfunding by BackerKit. We’d love for you to stop by, say hello, and tell us about what brings you to Spiel Essen. Be sure to mark us on your map!

At our booth you can expect to:

Participate in Playtests & Demos — throughout the con we’ll be hosting live playtests and demos at our booth featuring an amazing lineup of games including a few from some BackerKit team members — Realm Runners from Skinner x Jason Furie and Neon Reef from Snake Toy Games. Full list of demos to be updated here soon (bookmark this page!) and we will also announce on our social media channels.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter ( or is it “x” now?) for up-to-date demo schedules leading up to the event.Grab BackerKit’s Crowdfunding Passport — this is your ultimate guide to some amazing booths you simply can’t miss. It’s truly an all-star lineup featuring creators and collaborators of all shapes and sizes. 

Featured companies and brands in the passport this year includes — Loke Battle Mats, Bezier Games, Fowers Games, Mighty Boards, Cephalofair Games, The Dice Tower, Panda Game Manufacturing, Laserox Design, and Camden Games.

The rules are simple:

1. Pick up a passport at our booth, or a participating booth
2. Get a unique stamp from everyone featured in the passport
3. Return the completed passport to BackerKit Booth #4D113 for a prize!

Talk shop with the BackerKit team — If you are planning to launch a crowdfunding project, even if it’s far off, stop by our booth so we can talk directly about your project. We’ll have experts on hand throughout the entire convention to help set you up for crowdfunding success.

Be sure to come say hi to the BackerKit team at booth #4D113. We look forward to seeing you all in real life!

The post BackerKit at Spiel Essen 2023 appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

BackerKit is ready for Gen Con 2023 — one of the world’s largest tabletop games convention featuring 4 days of gaming bliss. And honestly, the biggest challenge is figuring out how to pack all the games we bought in our luggage for the voyage home.

We’ll be returning to Indianapolis from August 3rd-6th showing up bigger and better than ever before. We’re in the exhibit hall at Booth #260, have an amazing dedicated space less than a block away in collaboration with Hunter’s Entertainment and Rollacrit, and we’ll be up to our normal shenanigans with demos, playtests, panels, and our now-famous “Crowdfunding Passport”.  

As always, it’s going to be an amazing time and we look forward to connecting with you all in real life. Keep reading to learn more about how you can get some quality facetime with the BackerKit team at Gen Con 2023!

We’ve got an amazing booth location this year in the Exhibit Hall located at Booth #260. It’s near a main entrance and right next door to our friends Cephalofair Games (Booth #157) who just finished their epic $5M Gloomhaven Grand Festival campaign on BackerKit.

We’d love for you to stop by, say hello there, and tell us about what brings you to Gen Con. Be sure to mark us on your map!

At our booth you can expect to:

Participate in Playtests & Demos — throughout the con we’ll be hosting live playtests and demos right at our booth featuring the likes of Greater Than Games (License to Grill), The Story Engine (Story Engine: Lore Master’s Deck), Snake Toy Games (Neon Reef), and Realm Runners from Skinner and Jason Furie (hey that’s me!). 

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter ( or is it “x” now?) for up-to-date demo schedules.

Grab BackerKit’s Crowdfunding Passport — this is your ultimate guide to creators at Gen Con who launch their crowdfunding projects on BackerKit. It’s truly an all-star lineup featuring creators of all shapes and sizes. 

Featured creators in the passport this year includes — Restoration Games, Monte Cook Games, Snowbright Studio, Asmadi Games, Greater Than Games (Flat River Group)

9th Level Games, Rose Gauntlet Entertainment, Cephalofair Games, Goodman Games, Green, Ronin Publishing, Weird Giraffe Games, and The Story Deck (BFE Webcomics).

The rules are simple:

1. Pick up a passport at our booth, or a participating creator’s booth
2. Get a unique stamp from everyone featured in the passport
3. Return the completed passport to BackerKit Booth #260 for a prize!

Talk shop with the BackerKit team — If you are planning to launch a crowdfunding project, even if it’s far off, stop by our booth so we can talk directly about your project. We’ll have experts on hand throughout the entire convention to help set you up for crowdfunding success.

BackerKit will be hosting our annual Crowdfunding Do’s and Don’ts panel on Saturday, August 5th at 12 PM EST. Guests include Suzanne Sheldon (Restoration Games), Heather O’Neill (9th Level Games), and Lindsey Rode (Rose Gauntlet Entertainment). Moderated by yours truly (Jason Furie, Senior Community Manager at BackerKit).

An in-depth conversation covering important do’s and don’ts you need to consider when crowdfunding. We’ll discuss how to prepare for your strongest launch possible, the most common mistakes you should avoid at all costs, and important do’s and don’ts worth considering no matter your experience level. Stick around after the conversation for live Q&A between the panelists and attendees.

We will also be a guest panelist on Panda Game Manufacturing’s expert panel — Launching your Board Game: Insights into Crowdfunding, Manufacturing, and Fulfillment. 

Have you wondered what it takes to get your idea funded, manufactured, and into the hands of board gamers? Join our experts in game design (Matthew Austin, The King’s Guild), crowdfunding (Jason Furie, BackerKit), manufacturing (Shannon Lentz, Panda Game Manufacturing), and fulfillment (Matt Goldrick, Quartermaster Logistics) to learn the tips and tricks on how to navigate the process successfully. We’ll have a Q&A session allowing attendees to ask specific questions about their own board game projects.

In collaboration with our friends at Hunter’s Entertainment and Rollacrit, BackerKit will be posted up at an amazing Edgar Allen Poe themed venue called Nevermore throughout all 4 days of Gen Con! It’s just a 5 min walk from the convention center!

And mark your calendars as BackerKit will be hosting official “Office Hours” throughout the con so you can talk shop with us about your upcoming crowdfunding plans. 

Location

302 S Meridian St, Indianapolis, IN 46225

Open to the Public

Thurs 11am – midnight | Fri + Sat 11am – 3am (21+ after 8pm)

Official BackerKit “Office Hours”

Thurs, Fri, Sat 3pm – 7pm

Be sure to come say hi to the BackerKit team at booth #260 or at Nevermore while you’re at Gen Con. We’ve never been more excited to attend. See you soon in Indianapolis!

The post BackerKit at Gen Con 2023 appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

Today, we are opening our crowdfunding platform to all creators. We are thrilled to invite you to launch your upcoming projects on BackerKit. You’ll join creators from far and wide to help us build a community-driven future for crowdfunding.

Sign up to bring your project to BackerKit.

Backers make it better

By forming vibrant communities and offering valuable ideas and feedback, backers help creators make better products and build resilient businesses. That is the magic of crowdfunding: how it transforms the creative process into a collective effort. It’s why we celebrate how creators engage their backer communities front and center on our new homepage.

Seasoned creators have long relied on backers for inspiration and support beyond funding. They get that backers enable top game studios like Cephalofair to get off the ground, shape collections from innovative teams like Mini Museum, and embark on years-long journeys to create epic games like Return to Dark Tower. 

We built a platform that empowers you to connect more deeply with backers and enhances the collective experience of creating something extraordinary together. It encourages, and sometimes even insists, that you invite backers into the creative process and provides you superpowers for engaging your backers and followers. 

On BacketKit, you can use polls to play RPG with your backer community, explore ideas for product accessories in discussions with your backers, throw a launch party to reveal hidden aspects of your new project via livestreams, and create community missions that enable your backers to unlock new designs. Before launch, you can set up a landing page that promotes your project to grow your community and craft email campaigns to nurture your followers. 

Sign up to check out our backer engagement tools.

Building it together

On BackerKit, the collective spirit that makes crowdfunding special extends beyond individual campaigns. It encompasses how we build and improve our platform in close collaboration with creators and our efforts to nurture a network of creators to assist one another. 

We worked in close collaboration with seasoned creators to build our platform. We have ten years of experience making tools that help creators get more from crowdfunding, guided by closely observing creators’ work and listening to their feedback. 

The current state of our platform is just a starting point. It will constantly evolve to deliver creator and backer experiences that are better every time. With your participation, we can figure out what to build next.

We just launched a Crowdfunding Creator Community to connect creators actively working on projects. It’s a place where you can support and learn from one another to make progress on your project and improve your chances of success. The central creator hub is organized into channels for each essential phase required to launch a project successfully. We’ll be there to offer expertise and moderate discussions. 

Sign up and create a project to join our creator community.

Build before you launch

With the advent of our crowdfunding platform, we now offer the most comprehensive and robust toolset for your entire crowdfunding journey. BackerKit can power your efforts, from building community to messaging your followers, marketing on social media, shipping rewards, and more. 

Our tools are shaped by intelligence garnered from supporting over 15,000 successful campaigns and helping creators manage pledges for over 32,000,000 backers. An essential lesson from our experience is that a crowdfunding campaign needs a supportive community to soar, just as a plane needs fuel to take off. 

Sign up and use our pre-launch tools to start building and nurturing your community.

The hundred-plus creators who have launched projects with us during our beta period have been essential in shaping our platform. We are eternally grateful for their support. We invite you to launch your next project on BackerKit. By joining our community, you can help us figure out what to build next, and together we can make crowdfunding better.

The post Launch Your Next Crowdfunding Project On BackerKit appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

We are thrilled to unveil our redesigned website. Our new homepage is your portal to innovative projects and talented creators launching on our crowdfunding platform. It showcases how we are enhancing backers’ role in crowdfunding and expanding our support for our creator partners.

Check out BackerKit’s new site to experience our community-focused approach to crowdfunding.

Transforming the creative process into a collective effort 

Crowdfunding has the power to transform projects from solo endeavors into collective efforts. The engagement between a creator and their backers can improve a project’s final output and nurture bonds that pay dividends. 

Seasoned creators get this. They know that backers don’t just fund projects, they help projects succeed by spreading the word; they make products better by providing valuable feedback and asking insightful questions; they breathe life into the communities that make projects memorable; and they are the earliest adopters and often loudest champions for creators.

Last year, we set out to unleash the extraordinary possibilities that arise when creators and backers join forces. Since then, we’ve built a platform that encourages, and often even insists, that creators involve backers in the creative process. In tandem, we’ve developed a set of creator tools to power these collaborations. 

We couldn’t be more excited about the 100-plus projects that have been successfully funded on BackerKit. Our collaboration with these creators has been instrumental in shaping our platform. 

We’d love for you to join us on this journey by backing a project or creating one of your own. 

Portal to our creative community

Our new homepage makes it easy to discover exciting projects, explore engaging backer experiences, or search for specific campaigns. 

The central feed surfaces popular projects, lively discussions, engaging polls, popular community achievements, entertaining live streams, and more. From the discovery panel on the left, you can browse projects by categories and curated selections. To find a specific project or creator, you can use the search bar at the top of the page.

Head over there now to explore the amazing projects and creators in our community. 

Superpowers for backer engagement

The most valuable outcome of a crowdfunding campaign is an engaged community of backers invested in a creator’s success. That’s the driving force behind our focus on providing creators with superpowers for backer engagement. 

Here is an intro to some of the tools we’ve been developing:

Polls: the number one driver of backer engagement on our platform, polls allow creators to ask questions to their backers and share their responses. Creators have adopted polls to give backers a voice in shaping projects, elicit input to inform community engagement efforts, and have fun.  

Livestreams: to celebrate important moments with their community, creators can host live events on their project page (or pre-launch page). Mini Museum hosted a launch party that garnered over eight thousand viewers, and Cephalofair’s launch announcement had an impressive showing, with more than twenty thousand participants.

Community Achievements: creators can set secondary goals that are activated when base funding goals are reached. Achievements don’t have to be monetary, they can be based on backer count, pledges to specific reward tiers, social media shares, and more. They can be used to unlock reveals, and rewards, just to name a few. By celebrating collective action, achievements allow creators to gamify backer engagement and keep backers invested throughout the campaign. 

Discussion Threads: to create space for fun, meaningful, and engaging conversations, we organize discussions into threads and provide creators with powerful moderation tools. To get backers to join the conversation as soon as they pledge, creators can even highlight a discussion on the pledge confirmation page. 

Build the future with us

With the launch of our new site, we have brought into focus our community-driven vision for crowdfunding. And, we have significantly enhanced our ability to power creators’ efforts across their entire journey, from building community to shipping rewards.

Our work is nowhere near done. We are committed to building a platform that improves over time and delivers creator and backer experiences that are better every time. Join us on this journey to create the future of crowdfunding. 

Take the first step today by signing up and backing a project.

The post Crowdfunding Projects Take Center Stage on Our New Site appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

In 2018, BackerKit established The Creative Fund — our commitment to redistribute the crowdfunding wealth and encourage and inspire creators. Since 2020, BackerKit has focused our efforts with The Creative Fund on supporting Black-led campaigns and campaigns about Black and African culture.

We noticed a lack of diversity in the crowdfunding space, and one way that we are working to help make crowdfunding more inclusive is through The Creative Fund. We donate $1 to every project that launches on Kickstarter, but we also make significantly larger contributions to multiple Black-led projects every month.

Aside from seeing all of these projects take shape, one of the benefits of making contributions through The Creative Fund is the wonderful rewards we receive. From comics to tarot decks to tabletop games, so many great projects are being shipped to us all the time.

February is Black History Month, and during this time, we’d like to celebrate a few of the creators who have launched successful campaigns in the past year and highlight their work. We hope you’ll check out their campaign pages to learn more about their projects.

The Black Femme Tarot

On the campaign page for The Black Femme Tarot, Creator Latisha Shelton says, “as a Black person who loves tarot, it has been my wildest dream to create a full tarot deck of people who looked like me, people I know, and people who are underrepresented in your average tarot deck.” Shelton brought that dream to life through her successful crowdfunding project. The 78-card deck is vibrant and full of color, featuring a variety of skin tones, hairstyles, body types, and relationships across the LGBTQIA spectrum.

On the Streets of Ondo

Created by Evelyn Logan, On the Streets of Ondo is a beautifully illustrated children’s book about three brave friends on a quest to stop a mysterious figure in their town. The story is set in Nigeria and manages to be suspenseful while celebrating family, cultural traditions, and multi-generational relationships. Logan, who as a child was teased about her Nigerian heritage after immigrating to America, hopes this story will “inspire children to embrace who they are, no matter what street they come from.”

Gumbo Social

Dontaye Ball — also known as Mr. Gumbo — has served his signature gumbo, po’boys, and classic soul food at San Francisco farmers markets and community events throughout Northern California. In November of last year, he launched a successful campaign to open a restaurant. The Gumbo Social physical location is set to open its doors in 2023. For backing, we received these recipe cards, and we’re excited to try them out. Check out the campaign page updates to see how much progress Ball and his team have already made.

Hawi

Hawi is an African fantasy comic about a young woman on a mission to find her kidnapped mother. Etan Comics, which publishes this series, is a Pan-African entertainment company that “brings African stories to life through comics.” We received two copies of the comic — one in English and one in Amharic, the Ethiopian National Language. If you missed the campaign, you can get your own copy of Hawi on the Etan Comics website today.

All of the projects we’ve shared here have been featured in our bimonthly Black Creators Newsletter. If you or someone you know has a project that would be a good fit for the newsletter, please let us know by contacting community@backerkit.com. If you would like to subscribe to the Black Creators Newsletter, sign up at the link below.

The post The Creative Fund: More Success Stories appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

Are you looking for a new Mothman enamel pin for your collection? Maybe you’re interested in a glow-in-the-dark, mischievous cat pin. Dungeons and Dragons? Ghouls and Goblins? Finally, you can get all of these pins and more in one place. BackerKit is thrilled to announce our first-ever Pintopia, launching Tuesday, January 17th! 

What is Pintopia?

Pintopia is a multi-campaign, cooperative crowdfunding event by BackerKit — and you! It’s a celebration of creative collaboration where artists work together to bring you the best enamel pins around, and backers have the power to unlock exclusive designs.

We see crowdfunding as a massive multiplayer marketplace — it’s community driven. A creator’s vision stirs up backer enthusiasm, and together, they bring a new idea into the world. But that multiplayer, communal experience doesn’t have to stop with the collaboration between creator and backer. When creators team up, the success of one project can have a ripple effect that allows everyone to benefit.

During Pintopia, a series of enamel pin projects from a diverse group of creators will collectively launch on Crowdfunding by BackerKit. With all of the Pintopia projects launching simultaneously, backers will have a chance to discover projects they may not have otherwise found while creators can collaborate in ways that add even more value to their already exciting offerings. That means more creators launch successful campaigns and more cool things for all of us!

Who’s participating?

The Pintopia lineup is full of talented artists whose work encompasses so many different genres and concepts. From plants and cats to 90s nostalgia and skateboarding breakfast foods — there’s truly something for everyone. So head over to the Pintopia page today to check out the 21 projects that will be launching.

How does it work?

Pintopia runs from January 17th at 10 AM PST to February 7th at 1 PM PST. On January 17th, the projects on the Pintopia page will go live. This is your chance to explore and back the projects that catch your eye. But remember, the more projects you back, the more you earn.

If all of the projects get funded, all backers will receive a free Pintopia 2023 pin. Also, free collab pins will be revealed throughout Pintopia that you can snag by backing multiple projects.

Back 3+ projects
Free collab pin #1 designed by Jason Furie and Katie Bacigalupi

Back 5+ projects
Free collab pin #2 designed by AsherBee and Liquid 90s

Back 7+ projects
Free collab pin #3 designed by Aspenhearted and Carly K

But wait, there’s more! If you back 10+ projects, you’ll get the limited Gold Trophy pin. And if you back all of the projects, you’ll get a secret reward.

How can you get involved?

Visit the Pintopia page and sign up for updates from your favorite projects. Once the projects go live, show your support by backing, letting the creators know what you think about their designs, and sharing the projects you love with your friends and family. Make sure to join us for the launch on January 17th!

The post Announcing Pintopia 2023 appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

This year at Backerkit has been one of transformation, experimentation, and growth. We started a new crowdfunding platform — Crowdfunding by BackerKit! In doing so, we, along with everyone who has launched or backed a project with us in 2022, are taking the first steps toward building the future of crowdfunding, and it couldn’t be more exciting. We’re also celebrating BackerKit’s 10th anniversary. That’s 10 years of working with the crowdfunding community and helping creators of all types bring amazing ideas into the world. Over the years, the BackerKit team has worked with over 14,000 projects, helping creators raise over $650 million, while our expert Support team has directly helped 376,115 backers, resolving issues and requests.

Major developments and milestones like these beg you to ask how you’ve gotten to this point. The answer is all of you. It’s you – the creators, backers, friends, and partners that have made this possible. Your passion motivates us to discover new ways to support the work you’re doing. So, as we take a look back at 2022, we also want to thank you for all that you do.

Introducing Crowdfunding by BackerKit

This year, we took on our most ambitious endeavor yet: the beta release of Crowdfunding by BackerKit. While the platform launched in June, this new chapter actually began years ago.

Since 2012, we’ve had a chance to work with so many of you, witnessing the techniques you’ve invented to engage your backers and build your audiences. We’ve listened to your challenges, we’ve learned from your successes, and we’ve been inspired by the way that the crowdfunding community has been able to innovate in this space throughout the years.

We believe that you all deserve a crowdfunding platform that evolves to meet your changing needs and embraces the spirit of innovation and experimentation that have pushed crowdfunding forward. Since launching in June, we’ve teamed up with the creators of 42 projects to begin building that platform. We’re working hand-in-hand with these creators, listening to their feedback, figuring out ways to support their explorations, and developing tools that will make it easier for more creators to adopt the most effective crowdfunding techniques.

Because we’ve been working closely with these creators, we’ve had a front-row seat to so many amazing moments. We’ve seen creators like CMYK and XYZ Game Labs have their most successful campaigns ever, and we’ve seen others like Baby Bestiary and Greater Than Games hit backer count milestones. While there are great stories that have come from each project that launched with us this year, here are just a few that were especially exciting.

Moments we loved

Return to Dark Tower reaches $2 million: We were thrilled to work with the talented team at Restoration Games, launching the 2nd printing of Return to Dark Tower and the Covenant Expansion on our platform in July. From start to finish, we were impressed with the amount of hard work and thought that was put into this project, as well as the team’s willingness to experiment with things like email communications using BackerKit Launch and how pledge add-ons function. One of the most exciting moments of the year was watching all of that hard work pay off in a major way as the project raised $2 million.

An interactive campaign: In October, creators Alchemy Art, blushsprout, and Chocolate Raisin Fury teamed up to launch Purrtagonists: Fabled Felines — a cat and Dungeons and Dragons-themed enamel pin project. The trio came to us hoping to do an interactive, choose-your-own-adventure-style campaign, and we were eager to help them get the results they were after. Using the platform’s poll feature, backers were able to influence the direction of the project and which pin designs would be unlocked. You can read more about their experience with BackerKit here.

Creator collaboration: Bird Ita Bags & Accessories by Corviforms and Pizza Pinz by BackerKit’s own Jason Furie were two of the first projects to launch on BackerKit. Both creators dove into the experience with an incredible amount of enthusiasm and quickly coordinated a cross-collaboration while their projects were live. Both offered a free, specially designed pigeon pin for people who backed both projects. Together they exemplified the spirit of collaboration and community that you love to see in crowdfunding.

StarKid Returns: Demonstrating just how powerful a strong community (and strong coffee) can be, Team StarKid held a marathon 18-hour Finale Livestream where they hung out with their fans and drove pledges. By the end of the livestream, they’d unlocked all of their stretch goals and surpassed their funding goal by more than $100,000.

We want to thank all of the creators who’ve put their trust in us and have offered their candid feedback. We also want to congratulate them for the work they’ve done this year. We look forward to teaming up with more of you in the new year!

Are you launching a crowdfunding project in the new year? We’d love to hear from you! We are now accepting applications to launch on Crowdfunding by BackerKit in 2023. Apply here. Spots are limited.

Supporting the crowdfunding community

While Crowdfunding by BackerKit was a major focus this year, we remain committed to supporting all creators at every stage of their crowdfunding journey. This year, a few ways that we were able to continue this work were by producing all new resources, highlighting projects by creators from underrepresented communities, and learning more about the crowdfunding community’s needs from many of you in person at conventions.

BackerKit livestreams

In 2022, we hosted seven livestreams, covering everything from game design and manufacturing to landing page do’s and don’ts. Studio Midhall — creators of the tabletop game Beast — joined us, sharing tips on how to get funded on your first try. And by popular demand, we continued our campaign page daft reviews, where we analyzed campaign pages submitted by the BackerKit Community and offered tips on how to design a great-looking page that drives pledges.

Livestreams are a fun way for us to connect with all of you. We also like to provide the community with an opportunity to ask questions at the end of each presentation. So if you haven’t attended a livestream in the past and are thinking of launching a crowdfunding campaign in the new year, we hope you’ll join us during our upcoming presentations. We already have an exciting lineup planned for 2023, so make sure to follow us on Crowdcast to be the first to know about what’s coming next.

New resources

One thing that we firmly believe in here at BackerKit is the power of an email list. When you’ve taken the time to build a high-quality list of people who’ve shown interest in your project before you launch, getting funded early is easier. However, the process of building that list can be challenging. In fact, whenever we’ve asked the BackerKit Community about their top crowdfunding challenges, building an email list and organic marketing are always mentioned.

This year, we created several resources to help creators tackle email list growth. We hosted Start Building Your Email List — our first crowdfunding mini-course.

Throughout the six-week course, the 160 creators who enrolled learned:

• How to get their first subscribers and find their target audience
• How to optimize a landing page
• Which tools to use to assess list-building progress and refine their strategy

In addition to the course, we also published new pieces on list building and community engagement. You can check them out below:

• How strong is your crowdfunding email list?
• 6 creators offer advice on community building

Events and conventions

Conventions and in-person events were back in full swing in 2023, and we were so happy to be able to participate and meet so many of you. This year, our team attended Gen Con, Essen Spiel, and PAX Unplugged.

Conventions have always been a big deal at BackerKit. Because of the pandemic, it’s been more than two years since we’ve been able to attend in-person events. We loved being back there on the convention floor, letting people know about the latest developments at BackerKit, chatting with creators, and passing out resources and swag. A few of the highlights from this year include:

• Reconnecting with our tabletop games family at Gen Con and sponsoring the First Exposure Playtest Hall where we ran game playtests all day long four days in a row!
• Traveling to Germany and getting priceless facetime with our international friends at Essen Spiel.
• Attending the reveal event at PAX Unplugged for the Gloomhaven Role Playing Game. Immediately followed by an epic party we co-hosted alongside Cephalofair Games filled with food, fun, and…axe throwing!

We will be at CES January 5-8, 2023, and hope to see you there! You can find BackerKit in Eureka Park at Booth # 60516.

The Creative Fund and Black Creators Newsletter

In July 2018, BackerKit launched The Creative Fund — our commitment to make space for independent creators, spread the crowdfunding wealth, and encourage creators to bring their passions to life. To date, we’ve pledged $190,727.37 to creators. As part of this initiative, we donate $1 to every project that launches on Kickstarter. Last year, we decided to refocus the Creative Fund to combat the lack of diversity we noticed in the community. While we still donate $1 to every Kickstarter project, we now also make a more substantial pledge to Black-led campaigns every month.

We also send out a bi-monthly Black Creators Newsletter, featuring Black-led projects. This year we’ve sent out 24 of these newsletters. Check out our Creative Fund success stories to learn more about a few of the projects that we’ve recently featured.

You can subscribe to the newsletter here, and if you or someone you know is interested in being featured, please reach out to community@backerkit.com.

Looking ahead

We have so many exciting things in store for our customers and the crowdfunding community at large. We’re kicking off 2023 with Pintopia — a series of small-scale enamel pin projects from a diverse group of creators collectively launching on Crowdfunding by BackerKit. One of our goals with this event is to lift up more projects and bring attention to the entire group in a fun, creative way.

We also plan to launch even more projects on our platform in the new year and are currently accepting applications. As always, we’ll continue to find new ways to support the community that we’re so proud to be a part of.

The post BackerKit Year in Review 2022 appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

BackerKit has been building pledge management and marketing tools for crowdfunding creators and backers for a decade. Over the years, we’ve had the pleasure of witnessing the magic that happens when creators and their fans come together to bring great ideas into the world. But we knew it was time for the industry to move forward.

In June, we announced Crowdfunding by BackerKit — a new crowdfunding platform that we are building alongside a select group of creators. In the past six months, not only have 35 projects funded, but creators like CMYK, Corviforms, and XYZ Game Labs have had their most successful campaigns to date on the platform. We’re listening to creators’ feedback, we’re learning from their wins, and together we’re developing tools and practices that we’re eager to share with the crowdfunding community.

As we look ahead to 2023, we are preparing to welcome many more creators and backers to the Crowdfunding by BackerKit platform. We’re pleased to announce that we are now accepting creator applications to launch campaigns with us next year. While we plan to launch about six new projects every week and increase the variety of projects on Crowdfunding by BackerKit, we remain focused on developing the platform for the future. This means we will continue to focus on a smaller number of select campaigns in the coming months with an eye toward more general availability later in 2023.

If you are a creator planning to launch a crowdfunding project in 2023, we invite you to complete the application.

Thanks for all that you do. We are thrilled to be building the future of crowdfunding together with you.

The post Crowdfunding by BackerKit: Now Accepting Applications for 2023 appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

It’s been almost three months since we announced our most ambitious endeavor yet: the beta release of Crowdfunding by BackerKit. We set out to establish a crowdfunding platform that meets creators’ evolving needs and affords them new opportunities to engage and collaborate with backers. To date, more than 33,000 backers have pledged to support fifteen creators of different shapes and sizes. Projects have ranged from multi-million dollar tabletop games, to indie art, and divination projects.

We’re partnering closely with creators in our beta cohort, listening attentively to the feedback from them and their backers, and learning new ways to improve every day. Check out the projects that are currently live and those that have recently ended to see how creators are using the platform. Soon, we’ll share more in-depth looks at what we’ve discovered on this journey so far, so stay tuned!

New Crowdfunding Projects

Today, we’re excited to highlight a fantastic roster of creators who have recently launched projects on BackerKit or will be launching soon. We invite you to visit Crowdfunding by BackerKit to dive deep into live projects and get a glimpse at what you can expect in the near future.

Want to Launch on BackerKit?

Crowdfunding by BackerKit is in beta until early next year. We have a packed calendar for the rest of 2022. Although space is limited, if you are interested in launching on BackerKit early next year, we’d love to hear from you.

To reach out, just fill out this form, and our team will follow up with you should a spot become available and your project is a fit. We will review all submissions but cannot respond to each applicant individually.

Thank you for your support. Together we can build the future of crowdfunding.

The post New Projects Launching on Crowdfunding by BackerKit appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.