20170505 Crowdfunding talk

Discussing a Possible Crowdfunding Campaign

Date: Friday, May 05th, 09:30-11:00
Place: UniverCité, 1st flood Hackuarium lab

Meeting

Present

• Vanessa
• Rachel
• Luc

Input from Inartis (Edouard)

- Hackuarium does a small campaign to finance the expenditures related to the new lab of the 2nd floor.
- Size of the campaign : CHF20'000 to raise.
- Get the ScienceBooster grant which gives CHF1 for each CHF1 raised : CHF10'000 to raise.
- Benoit helps find a couple of thousands : CHF6'000 to raise.

Input from last Board Meeting

The details of the discussion that happened in the last Board meeting is available here.

The information above seem to signal a change from the initial strategy:

CACIB to provide a great part of funds (0.8M of 1.2M) needed for the upgrade of the building. Inartis wants to raise 50-100K by crowdfunding. Final amount is not clear. Hackuarium can contribute know-how and projects as rewards. The idea is to provide participation to workshops. The campaign will offer visibility to the projects. Inartis takes care of the planning.

What do we did agree to contribute

We offer communication according to this:

• 1 Post on newsletter
• 10 Facebook post
• 10 Twitter post

Edouard Treccani, who works for Inartis/MC, is the main contact for the Crowdfunding. There was a 'soft launch' during the night of the political debate about Innovation in Vaud (Tuesday 11th April). The actual 'digital' launch is 11 May, campaign runs until 11 June.

What are the answers we need?

• Do we agree that Hackuarium is now in charge?
• What will the money be used for? Can we support projects or Inartis wants a share (or all), and why?
• We need to pay for running workshops -> must be included in the value of the workshop!
• When is the new lab ready? Can we use the moving in the narrative?
• When can we schedule the moving?

Input from anyone else?

The goal of this meeting is to decide on what to propose to the community on May 17th, and then to bring it up to Inartis (each item accepted at the EGA).
Please contribute here if you want to say something that we should take into consideration in this discussion.
The different aspects will be voted at the General Assembly.

Your opinion below

• Shalf : IF, as I believe from first imput from Edouard, still needing Benoît to clearly and quickly speak up, this means Inartis won't operate this: then we chose a way better time for the association to run this. Our campaign, our timeline. May-June is kind of the worst moment for this:
  • No time for proper preparation
  • On a personal level, no time AT ALL (work-work-work)
  • I'd be in favor to propose a campaign in October. As much prep work as we can this Summer, and a dedicated task force willing and being able to contribute a lot of time in September to ramp up attention before the campaign.
  • One or the other: we are expected to pay our share because nobody can afford to be "the bank" and pay all the invoices from construction workers, then it is a joke to be so late to ask, and to ask this way; it is a good (and I believe healthy) thing if we can contribute, then we do it in a proper, ordered, planned, trully community-oriented way ("our way"). Which has one well-known particularity: it takes TIME.

• update - time is now available - potentially a campaign for Hackuarium itself can be launched in late Sept, if the community is ready to support this effort!

Output from the meeting

Inspiration from La Paillasse: see their campaign.

Further inspiration: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1836537355/counter-culture-labs-your-biohacking-and-citizen-s

(to note: the DIY CRISPR project ODIN also had a successful crowdfunding campaign...)

Motivations

Visibility boost
Bring new/more people to Hackuarium with activities
Bring the community together around a common goal

Narrative

• Hackuarium has been doing this for the past 3 years
• We moved to brand new lab space
• Our goal is to go one step further and open the lab to more people
• We have projects that communicate science that need a boost
• We need support to share these projects

Realistic Timeline

Content: June-July
Strategy: August
Launch: End of September

Realistic Amount

30,000 CHF (20,000 from the crowd + 10,000 from the booster)

Option A

10,000 to support workshops + campaign + projects
20,000 to Inartis

Option B

10,000 to support workshops + campaign + projects
20,000 for minigrants and various activities over 2017-2018

Plateform

• Wemakeit (with their ScienceBooster channel)
• Other?

Rewards

• Workshops
  
  • Different ones (see below)
  • Can be done over winter 2017-2018
  • limited size?
  • 2x each?
• Perks
  
  • Stickers
  • T-shirts?
  • Etc..
• Wall of fame
  • All names on a panel

Communications channels

• Newsletter to all
  
• Members' network
  
• Social media
  
• DIYbio and other communities
  

Next steps

• May 5th: Vanessa contacts potential workshop leads
  • Octanis
  • Hybridoa
  • Gustavo
  • Luc Patiny
  • Rachel (Cheek cells)
  • Olivier (connected beehive)
  • Hammerdirt (clean the beach + count the bacteria)
  • Living Instruments performance
  • BeerDeCoded? PCR?

• May 5th: Luc schedules a meeting and validate campaign decision + timeline with Benoit

• On May 17th: vote at the GA to validate the strategy

• Vanessa asks Joel + Yann H for communication support

• June: building the campaign
  • Workshop description (1 sentence)
  • Etc.

• September: run the campaign

People involved

Who?

- Time invested
- Tasks