One Percent Club - Storytelling for Crowdfunding
As a graduation project of my studies Communication & Multimedia Design I started a new project at the crowdfunding company 1%Club. At that time 1%Club was working on a completely new website and was looking for somebody who could develop a concept to improve the storytelling of project owners. I decided this could be an interesting graduation project, so I called this project Storytelling for Crowdfunding. After the research period I wrote my thesis about storytelling and developed a concept and design for a toolkit for project owners to improve their storytelling, which could be integrated in the new website.
Summary of the research
1%Club, a crowdfunding and crowdsourcing platform for development projects, lets her donors decide which projects they want to contribute to. 1%Club promises them that they will keep her donors updated about the progress of the project. 1%Club is responding to the public demand for direct results and transparent communication by asking project owners to provide insight into their plans, activities and results. The 1%Club facilitates this project communication on their platform, but project owners are the ones responsible for carrying out this communication. Research showed that 1%Club donors are disappointed in 1%Club and its projects because some project owners are not communicating about their progress. It is therefore necessary to examine how the project communication of project owners to (potential) donors can be improved. To find a solution to this problem it is necessary to know the difficulties of project communication for project owners, what members expect from them, what experts indicate as success factors for crowdfunding and how a story of a project can be told effectively. Research shows that the project communication does not meet the expectations due to a lack of knowledge and skills and in some cases also a lack of motivation. Providing storytelling guidance at different stages of the crowdfunding process and rewards as motivation could be a solution to this problem.
1%Club, a crowdfunding and crowdsourcing platform for development projects, lets her donors decide which projects they want to contribute to. 1%Club promises them that they will keep her donors updated about the progress of the project. 1%Club is responding to the public demand for direct results and transparent communication by asking project owners to provide insight into their plans, activities and results. The 1%Club facilitates this project communication on their platform, but project owners are the ones responsible for carrying out this communication. Research showed that 1%Club donors are disappointed in 1%Club and its projects because some project owners are not communicating about their progress. It is therefore necessary to examine how the project communication of project owners to (potential) donors can be improved. To find a solution to this problem it is necessary to know the difficulties of project communication for project owners, what members expect from them, what experts indicate as success factors for crowdfunding and how a story of a project can be told effectively. Research shows that the project communication does not meet the expectations due to a lack of knowledge and skills and in some cases also a lack of motivation. Providing storytelling guidance at different stages of the crowdfunding process and rewards as motivation could be a solution to this problem.
