Campaigning for science

Ryan Hamilton, an astronomy graduate student at New Mexico State University, says he turned to crowdfunding because "my adviser and I had been perpetually starved for funding." Hoping to raise money to attend a conference in Barcelona, Spain, Hamilton applied to SciFund Challenge. The nonprofit coordinates Web-based tutorials to help scientists create the best possible appeals, and then groups of participants run their campaigns in concert on RocketHub. Among other things, the participants critique each other's campaigns. "It was a good experience," says Hamilton, whose campaign ended up covering three-quarters of his airfare, "but it was a heck of a lot of work. Cataclysmic variables are hard to pitch."Another crowdfunding example is the Intergalactic Travel Bureau, an outreach project that mixes astronomy and theater. Visitors are asked what kind of vacation they would like to take, and a "travel agent" then recommends an extraterrestrial trip. For a sporty vacation, the agent might recommend Mars. "It has the highest mountains in the solar system," says Mark Rosin, a UCLA postdoc in mathematical physics and one of the project's creators. "And the 1- to 3-inch layer of dust is great for sand boarding." Trips are planned around scientific content, he says. The money goes toward props and the actors who play the travel agent, Rosin says.Projects that involve a product often do well with crowdfunding. An example is an energy-efficient light bulb designed by three engineers who met as students a few years ago while working on a solar car Their Kickstarter campaign ended up attracting 5746 donors to pledge 273 278, exceeding their goal by more than a factor of 10; they plan to start delivering the NanoLight next month. "We had no other medium to promote our product on," says partner Gimmy Chu. "If we tried to approach distributors, they would want us to produce something before giving us funding. That could be a catch-22. We needed a way to prove we have a good product."A crowdfunding campaign starts with packaging. In most cases, the fundraisers create a brief video that explains their goals and how they will use the money they raise. Many platforms vet projects.