Kickstarting into High Gear

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I’m the head writer on a new web series called “Vermin.”

Well, I’ll be the head writer if we can reach our Kickstarter goal and with 16 days left, we haven’t even reached the 25% mark yet.  I still think we can make it but we are going to need help.  Whose help?

If you are reading this, yours!

I’m going to put this into perspective for you.  Over the last week, a pizza restaurant in Indiana publicly announced they would never cater same-sex weddings.  As a result of their public declaration, they found themselves attacked and threatened by gay rights advocates who were pretty angry.

Threats, by the way, are never OK.  The people who did that should rightfully be called out for their hateful behavior.

Because of the threats, the pizzeria chose to close their doors for a short time and a GoFundMe campaign was initiated to help support their gay unfriendly business.  In short order, they raised over $800,000 from 1700 individual donors.

I bring this up because churches have spent years training their people to give money whenever they ask.  Nobody questioned whether or not a pizza restaurant really needed $800,000.  They just gave the money away without thinking about it.

Contrast that with “Vermin,” which is at only $4500 with 97 supporters (Ed: now just over $17,000 with 205 supporters).  That’s actually great but we need to raise at least $30,000 and that means we need…646 more supporters to reach our goal.

As an artist, I spend far too much of my time asking people for money because producing art is an expensive proposition.  Theaters charge for tickets because they have to pay their people.  And rent.  And the heating bill.

Theater companies do fundraisers because tickets can almost never cover the cost of doing business.

Somehow, though, we artists haven’t been able to train people quite the same way.  If we had, “Vermin” would be at 100% already.

It isn’t anyone’s fault that the progress has been slow.  The GoFundMe for homophobic pizza went viral because there was a network of people just waiting for a business under attack from the gay agenda (which totally needs to be the name of an improv team).

“Vermin” hasn’t gone viral because the network of people who support the arts is so disparate.  Getting the word out is hard.

I look at my friends list on Facebook and if every one of those friends donated $25, we would make our goal.  But Facebook limits the reach of posts because that is how they make money.  By limiting the number of people we reach, they encourage us to spend money to promote our Kickstarter so we can expand that reach.

We aren’t Zach Braff or Wil Wheaton so we lack a built-in audience ready to spread the news all over the internet.

Even if every one of my friends sees this post, they won’t all donate.  They can’t all afford it.  Or they just aren’t that interested in the project.  Whatever reason they have, it is their money and they have the right to spend (or not spend) it any way they want.

Success is measured in reach.  The more people who see this Kickstarter, the more potential donors we reach.  And if we reach enough people, this project will get funded.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is this: help make us go viral.  Contribute if you can but share even if you can’t. We are trying to raise $30,000 and because I’ve written the scripts, I can tell you the result will be well worth the funds.

If you think supporting the arts is a good thing, here’s a great chance to do it.  There are others and you have to choose which ones you want to support.  I completely understand if this isn’t for you.

But help us do less than 1/10th as well as a bigoted pizzeria, OK?

PS: If you donate $2000, you can get a rat puppet built by Gordon Smuder!!!  Far be it from me to question your sanity but if you have $2000 to spend, why wouldn’t you want one of those adorable puppets???

PPS:  Whoever shares our Kickstarter the most will get a free puppet if the campaign succeeds!