Kickstarter and the Marketplace of Ideas

Indego Africa is proud to be an original participant of Kickstarter, an innovative online funding platform grounded in the belief that (1) a good idea, communicated well, can spread fast and wide, and (2) a large group of people can be a tremendous source of money and encouragement.

This is how it works: someone posts a project/idea, a deadline, and an amount of $ they want to raise by that deadline for their project. Anyone can then make a pledge towards the goal. If a project has reached or exceeded its funding goal when time expires, all backers' credit cards are instantly charged and funds go directly to the project creator. If funding doesn't succeed, all pledges are immediately canceled like nothing ever happened. That's it! I love Kickstarter because it takes Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr's (right) notion of a "marketplace of ideas" and finds a way to reward the winners with what they need: funding.

This is where you come in! Indego Africa currently has $400 out of $600 pledged to cover the expenses of four of our Orphans of Rwanda interns for three months. But if we don't get that additional $200 by August 1, we get NOTHING! And no one wants that. Please take one minute (it's that fast) and check out our Kickstarter project (you can click on the graphic below). Even $5 gets us closer to the $600 goal!

A note on just how easy and secure your pledge is on Kickstarter: "Amazon.com processes all the pledges on Kickstarter. When you decide to make a pledge, we'll quickly take you to Amazon.com to confirm. If you have an Amazon.com account this takes only a few clicks. If you don't have an Amazon.com account, Amazon will ask you to register during the pledge process, but it's relatively painless. You won't need to do anything annoying (like stop in the middle and check your email)."

Thank you!

- Ben