Hi Denny,
Microryza is a great project. I'm a start up developer doing educational technology, and here is one thing that I think would really build trust with Microryza:
Show people the positive impact their donations are having by having researchers post blog updates as they work on their projects.
I think that it is great that you are not giving our plastic rewards for donations - I think those rewards are cheap and pointless. However, the underlying logic to the rewards system is that it builds trust - people donate because they know they are getting something tangible in return for the money. Now obviously in your case the tangible result is the successful research. However, you need to clearly communicate those success stories to new visitors to build trust in new projects.
Here is what I mean - I am a person who is on the fence about donating money. My hesitation about donating is due to the fact that I am not sure whether I am throwing money into a black hole or whether it will lead to something successful. For example, one campaign asks for $10,000 to treat childhood Alzheimers. I am skeptical about this because this seems like the type of project where $10,000 wouldn't even constitute a drop in the bucket. To assuage this skepticism it'd be really great to see how other similar projects in the past have made tangible progress. Seeing those successes would be the nudge that says this project is a worthwhile endeavor.
The biggest problem that I see in crowd funding right now is that there is still a disconnect between the aspirations of a project and the tangible product at the end of the road. If you want to bridge that disconnect you need to show people past success stories on your homepage to build trust. Your site shouldn't stop telling the story of a project once the donations have been raised. Instead, you should cover the progress of each project. I think one really good way of doing this would be having researchers post blog updates during the course of the research, each blog post detailing a specific part about the research project.
Here is an example - this is a cool project - https://www.microryza.com/projects/urban-pollination-sustain-native-bees-urban-crops/updates
The project is posting updates through its own website and twitter feed. However, I want to see this updates on the Microryza site. If I was looking through this project, and I saw, hey look, this research got $3500 and she did X, Y, Z, and this really cool, I'd be willing to donate money to another campaign. However, right now, since I don't see the tangible success of the funded projects, I am reluctant to donate. I think that communicating the successes of your projects will encourage more people to give money, and thus create a positive feedback loop for funding research.
Best of luck, Peter Gault
Hi Denny, Microryza is a great project. I'm a start up developer doing educational technology, and here is one thing that I think would really build trust with Microryza: Show people the positive impact their donations are having by having researchers post blog updates as they work on their projects. I think that it is great that you are not giving our plastic rewards for donations - I think those rewards are cheap and pointless. However, the underlying logic to the rewards system is that it builds trust - people donate because they know they are getting something tangible in return for the money. Now obviously in your case the tangible result is the successful research. However, you need to clearly communicate those success stories to new visitors to build trust in new projects. Here is what I mean - I am a person who is on the fence about donating money. My hesitation about donating is due to the fact that I am not sure whether I am throwing money into a black hole or whether it will lead to something successful. For example, one campaign asks for $10,000 to treat childhood Alzheimers. I am skeptical about this because this seems like the type of project where $10,000 wouldn't even constitute a drop in the bucket. To assuage this skepticism it'd be really great to see how other similar projects in the past have made tangible progress. Seeing those successes would be the nudge that says this project is a worthwhile endeavor. The biggest problem that I see in crowd funding right now is that there is still a disconnect between the aspirations of a project and the tangible product at the end of the road. If you want to bridge that disconnect you need to show people past success stories on your homepage to build trust. Your site shouldn't stop telling the story of a project once the donations have been raised. Instead, you should cover the progress of each project. I think one really good way of doing this would be having researchers post blog updates during the course of the research, each blog post detailing a specific part about the research project. Here is an example - this is a cool project - https://www.microryza.com/projects/urban-pollination-sustain-native-bees-urban-crops/updates The project is posting updates through its own website and twitter feed. However, I want to see this updates on the Microryza site. If I was looking through this project, and I saw, hey look, this research got $3500 and she did X, Y, Z, and this really cool, I'd be willing to donate money to another campaign. However, right now, since I don't see the tangible success of the funded projects, I am reluctant to donate. I think that communicating the successes of your projects will encourage more people to give money, and thus create a positive feedback loop for funding research. Best of luck, Peter Gault