Academy Of Art San Francisco

Kickstarter's online platform helps artists seek funds for their work

Key features: Projects are limited to those in the arts and no money is awarded if a project doesn't meet its goal. Artists set both the funding window and goal, creating incentives at each funding level.

Cost: Kickstarter takes 5% of the total award and Amazon Payments takes 3%-5%.

kickstarter.com

Key features: Projects here can be almost anything, including lifestyle projects where people seek tuition or rent. Users set a funding window and goal, and can also create Kickstarter-like incentives.

Cost: IndieGoGo takes 4% of a total project if it reaches its goal and 9% of projects that do not meet their goal. A third-party payment processor takes about 3% and a $25 fee for credit card processing.

indiegogo.com

Call it the RoboCop Effect.

Artists in Detroit are seizing the opportunity to see their projects funded this summer through the Web site Kickstarter -- an online community that allows those in the creative set to seek donations from friends and strangers.

Artists pitch projects on the site and then set a fund-raising goal and a deadline. Backers can then donate. If a project reaches or surpasses its goal, the artist gets the money and the project moves forward.

The power of the Kickstarter platform was illustrated earlier this year with the success of the effort to construct a RoboCop statue in Detroit -- a project that raised more than $67,000 from 2,700 backers.

What started as a joke -- fueled by a dismissive tweet from Detroit Mayor Dave Bing -- quickly became a reality when the project gained traction on the social Web as people passed around the link, tongues planted firmly in cheek.

Detroit, apparently, needed a superhero -- one that rose to prominence in a 1987 film depicting the city as a crime-plagued dystopian society.

RoboCop's success has been both a rallying point and anathema for the arts community here, showing how using the Web can put funds into the coffers of struggling artists but also how hard it can be to gain traction without a gimmick.

There are dozens of projects on the site from Detroit artists seeking funding, from a horror film about a woman who wraps her home in plastic to a poet hoping to publish a manuscript of her work. Several artists hoping to show their work at this fall's ArtPrize -- the lucrative art competition in Grand Rapids -- are seeking funds on Kickstarter, too. And just last week, Kickstarter traveled to Detroit's Cass Café to visit with artists about their projects.

Homeless Furniture 4 San Francisco in the Richmond district ...

&Nbsp; I am a freelance photographer with over eighteen years serving clients in the Bay Area and beyond. Accomplished and versatile, my clients include magazines like Elle Décor and Home Magazine; Interior Designers such as Grant K. Gibson, Chloe Warner, Caitlin Moran and Tish Key; and a wealth of organizations including Hastings College of Law, and Wells Fargo.

I studied photography at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, and earned a B.A. with an emphasis in Dance at the University of California, Santa Barbara. I have served on the San Francisco board of the Advertising Photographers of America, and often contribute my talents to nonprofit organizations and other worthy causes.

Please visit my website at http://www.macdonaldphoto.com .

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