If you haven’t been keeping up with LeVar Burton’s Kickstarter campaign to revive the popular children’s educational series, ‘Reading Rainbow,’ then it’s time to clue in!
Crowdfunding TimeLine
May 29th: Burton does a Reddit AMA and a slew of interviews. The Reading Rainbow campaign more than doubles its fundraising amount to $2.5 million via 50,000+ backers.
May 30th: Reading Rainbow Campaign announces $5 million dollar stretch goal mark, which will provide free program access to 5x more classrooms (7,500) and distribution on mobile devices, game consoles, and OTT boxes.
Jun 4 (end of Week 1): 76,000+ backers. ~3.5 million. Campaign adds new rewards and begins to plan a program where backers can volunteer to spread the word in their local community.
Jun 11 (end of Week 2): Nearing 4 million pledged. Burton begins to tap into the Star Trek niche, offering fans the chance to attend a series of live one-time-only events where Burton and other members of the Star Trek cast will read childrens’ books.
June 13 (Almost halfway point): Burton enlists the ~1,000 volunteers via the program mentioned on Jun 4th to spread the word through social media profile icons and direct outreach to their local community. The campaign is at ~4 million pledged.
Jun 18: Reading Rainbow Campaign begins selling DVDs of the original television series as a new “add on” reward due to backer inquiries.
June 19-25: Campaign introduces Reading Rainbow calendar, highlighting six well-known artists, illustrators and cartoonists. The project also highlights the T-Shirt, Coffee Mug & Tote Bag Designs. On the 25th, the campaign officially surpasses the $4 million mark.
Jun 26: Seth MacFarlane agrees to mark next $1,000,000 worth of pledges (pledges above $4,000,000). There are 5 days left in the campaign.
June 27: Four limited edition rewards are announced from the other top 4 Kickstarter campaigns of all time (Pebble, OUYA, Pono and Veronica Mars).
June 30 (48 hours left): Reading Rainbow campaign hits Kickstarter record for campaign with the most backers. The team now offers free bookmarks to those who have pledged over $5 and free stickers if the campaign hits 100,000 backers. The project also releases two new rewards: signed art prints and packages to specifically help libraries.
Jul 1: Campaign offers two new rewards: the chance to meet the cast of Battlestar Galactica via a Reading Rainbow Live event and the chance to meet visit the set of PERCEPTION and PARENTHOOD and meet the cast.
24 hours to go: Reading Rainbow announces 4 new rewards (Digital Downloads, DODOcases, Picnic Blankets. PLUS: RRL ONLINE with Donald Glover!).
Campaign ends: $5,408,650 pledged. 105,852 backers. 17,000+ comments.
Crowdfunding Stats via Kicktraq
Traffic Stats via Bitly
What can you takeaway from this campaign?
1. Appealing to multiple niches: Burton’s team didn’t just use his rewards to appeal to lovers of reading and education. He identified that a certain portion of his supporters were interested in his connections and relationship to the Star Trek community and released perks exclusively for that fan base (Jun 11). He also did this by appealing to Battlestar Galactica lovers (Jul 1).
2. Keeping your backers engaged: 35 days might not seem like a long time period, but it’s actually a huge stretch of time to keep people engaged in a single endeavor. By releasing new rewards, add-ons, updates (28), and bringing interesting supporters to the campaign offering unique perks, Burton was able to keep his community engaged throughout the 35 days. Even then, the campaign still displayed the typical Kickstarter slump model, where most of the pledges are towards the beginning and end of the campaign.
3. Find an angel investor: One of the keys to getting the campaign from $4 million to the $5 million stretch goal was Seth MacFarlane’s $1 for $1 pledge. Not only did this make headlines, but it gave last-minute backers an incentive to pledge.
4. Network with other creators: On June 27, the team introduced exclusive rewards that were cobranded with other top Kickstarter projects. This gave them a way to market through those project’s audiences.
Incredible Success…What does it mean?
Despite LeVar Burton’s star power and the team helping him with the effort, I still think the $5.4 million dollar Reading Rainbow campaign is astounding, not just because of the number of backers and amount pledged, but because all of the good that money will do in terms of forwarding a cause and impacting the next generation.
Real change is going to happen in the world as a result of this campaign, and most of that is coming from the $5-$200 tiers. How cool is that!
To me, as Twitter and Facebook are to social media, Kickstarter and crowdfunding is to entrepreneurs, inventors, and change-makers.
In 2002-2010, we saw the rise of the blog, where individuals could gather an audience of thousands of readers, armed with nothing more than a laptop. One individual could have a voice and have a tangible effect on his or her surroundings.
In 2008-2014, we saw the explosion of social media. Whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, LinkedIn, or Instagram, stories can travel at lightening speed. You can keep up to date with your friends, family, celebrities, and also share your voice with the world, which can be rapidly shared with more and more connected people.
We are now beginning to a new wave, where not only can individuals spread the word about causes they care about via a blog or social media profile, but they can actually put their money where their mouth is, recruit their friends, and get neat perks to boot!
What’s even more incredible is that this financial tool is compounded by the previous two. If you just google “reading rainbow,” you will see all the blogs that have covered this campaign and if you do a Twitter advanced search or look at the Bitly stats, you can see how many times it was shared across social media (not even counting how many times stories about it were shared on social media).
Perhaps the coolest thing of all is that I’ll bet this major success will bring a slew of new backers to the Kickstarter platform, who will find more projects that they care about. In my last article, I talked about the Double Fine campaign:
“Combined, Double Fine and Order of the Stick raised more than $4.5 million, and their first-time backers have pledged another $1,083,937 to 1,000 other projects. Double Fine and Order of the Stick’s achievements have inspired tons of press and even other projects — as of today more than 35 projects have been launched by first-time backers, and 4 have already been successfully funded. Fellow blockbuster Wasteland 2 launched after being inspired by Double Fine.
These projects illustrate how the Kickstarter ecosystem is strengthened with each new project and backer.”
Over time, I think more and more celebrities and change makers will find Kickstarter to be a great way to combine news 2.0 with social media to garner real financial support and make substantial changes in the world. I’m excited for what’s in store for crowdfunding!
