Indiegogo-field-guide-e1364408084564-224x163Ready to get your project funded, but not exactly sure where to start? Well, you may want to check out Indiegogo's Field Guide for campaign owners, which contains almost everything you'd ever want to know about how to make your crowdfunding campaigns potentially more successful. It covers a large range of helpful topics that aren't necessarily exclusive to Indiegogo: tips on how to write and film a pitch, generating buzz, essential social media sites, and marketing. However, the guide digs in and lays out the Indiegogo experience with helpful tools, like checklists, clickable links, and a clear and engaging design. As an added bonus, it's really easy to understand!

For those of you who may not know what Indiegogo is, here's an excerpt from the guide:


Indiegogo is an open and global crowdfunding platform where anyone, anywhere can raise money for anything — whether creative, entrepreneurial, or cause-related. We want our community to make theirs and others’ dreams come to life — and therefore, we are committed to giving them every tool possible to do so.

When I first started making shorts, crowdfunding had just started to become the cool new thing. My filmmaker buddies would tell me about how a bunch of strangers donated money online to fund their projects -- my response being a single joyful tear rolling down my cheek. Now, crowdfunding is growing in popularity. Independent films have received significant amounts of money from Kickstarter, although these sites are not exclusive to movies. (Have you checked out the campaign for the 10-year hoodie?)

But, I'm sure that at this point in the filmmaking process, a lot of the romance dies down for a lot of artists. We live for the excitement of holding a freshly printed copy of a finished screenplay and hearing actors perform their first lines on camera, not necessarily crying relentlessly in a corner over dead ends and lack of funds. I blame all of this crying on the strain of being idle. There's nothing worse than a project being in limbo. Is it going to get made? Is it being released? Is my magnum opus ever going to live and breathe and thrive and become an eternal legend in people's hearts? (This is when you smile nervously and tell your now crazy filmmaker friend about the Indiegogo Crowdfunding Field Guide.)

The thing that I like about the field guide is that it gives me something to do. It gives me boxes to check, goals to set, and things to consider. It has it all there clearly labeled and linear, ready for my humble fumblings with a multi-colored gel pen. It is so incredibly easy to understand, too. I'm not a businesswoman. I'm just a person who wants to make a movie, and having clear bullet-points to follow makes organizing -- my least favorite part of the filmmaking process -- a little less painful.

This may be a personal preference, but I like the design of the Field Guide, too. It's fun and vibrant, yet simple and minimalistic. I just can't stand reading something that looks like it came right out of the copier for a stuffy business meeting -- sterile and unimaginative with too much text. Indiegogo did their research and found the most pertinent information to share.

This Field Guide is the product of years of data collection, dozens of conversations with campaigners, and the combined know-how of our Indiegogo team. We have consolidated all of this know-how to empower our campaigners to make the most of their crowdfunding experiences and help them reach their goals.

It's not a novel, at 22 pages, but it does contain all the essential information. For example, the chapter entitled "The first half of your campaign" has a section on "Spreading the Word." There's information on how to network using email, social media, and even what you can do offline, like starting local grassroots crowdfunding. It's to the point. It's concise. It's engaging, and why am I still rambling on? Take a look at the Indiegogo Crowdfunding Field Guide yourself!

Tell us what you think about Indiegogo's Field Guide. Was it helpful? Is the Indiegogo experience represented in the guide, or no?

Link: Indiegogo Crowdfunding Field Guide