We made it to $10,250 on our IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign! At 11am yesterday, we were at $8,330 and decided to do our polar plunge anyway in celebration of all our backers. After we came home wet, cold and happy, we had a slew of emails congratulating us that we made our goal! We were in shock! What an unbelievable surprise!
We’d like to send a great, big thank you to our 145 IndieGoGo backers and to the folks who helped make our campaign and movie successful, including Rahul Govindan, Tom McFadden, Ellie Bors, Joy Alison Cooper, Ian Boisvert, Jordan Marc Silver, Renaldo Mili, Philipp Bleek, Eden Savino, Lesley Wheeler, Oliver Ward and Chris Weber.
We can’t express enough how grateful we are and we are looking forward to updating you on our progress in this great ProFellow adventure!
Vicki & Ryan
Polar Plunge on the Wellington Waterfront Sep. 6!
We are one week away from the end of our IndieGoGo fundraising campaign and have raised an astonishing $7,218 to date! That means we are just $2,782 from our goal of $10K by Sep. 5!
Yet again, we are ready to up the ante. If we make it to $10K by Monday, Sep. 5, we will dress in ridiculous costumes, parade ourselves down the busy Wellington waterfront, and take a POLAR PLUNGE! This is not just any plunge – this is a 13 foot drop into the COLD Wellington Harbour. And don’t forget – it’s winter here! Just two weeks ago it snowed in Wellington for the first time in 40 years! Yikes!
In addition to our polar plunge, on Sep. 6 we’ll hold our big prize drawings! First, for all backers who donated $25 or more, we’ll draw a winner for a $100 Visa gift card.
Second, from among our $100+ backers, one lucky person will win a pair of premium football tickets – a choice of: Atlanta Falcons v. Philadelphia Eagles on 9/18: Sec 137, Row 19, Seats 7/8 OR Georgia Tech v. Virginia Tech on 11/10: Sec 225, Row 10, Seats 13/14. These are fantastic seats!!
And IF we make it to $10K, ALL of our IndieGoGo backers will be entered into a drawing to win the other pair of tickets! But only if we make it to $10K. A big IF.
So we need your help. We are poised to create the largest online database of professional and academic fellowships in the world with 1,000 fellowships in 183 days.
Please help us meet our goal! Visit: http://www.indiegogo.com/1000-Fellowships-in-183-Days
Huge thank you to Oliver Ward for putting together these awesome fliers!
Hi ProFellows! Our next prize drawing for all backers of our IndieGoGo campaign will be next Monday at 5pm ET. We’ll be sending a package of Esque Fine Chocolate from Wellington, New Zealand to our winner. In addition to this drawing, we have prizes for every level of contribution! See our IndieGoGo page for more details.
We’re over half way to our goal of raising $10,0000, but we still need help! Please share with friends, family and colleagues. Thanks for your support!
We’re now 11 days into our IndieGoGo fundraising campaign-1,000 Fellowships in 183 Days-and due to the amazing support of our backers, have been lifted from obscurity to being the #1 grossing campaign in New Zealand, and to earning a spot on page 2 of the popular campaigns category.
This is absolutely huge for our project and is a testament to the overwhelming support that our family, friends and backers have provided thus far. There are hundreds of worthy projects on IndieGoGo, and for you to choose to support ours means the world to us.
As our campaign moves forward, Vicki and I are hopeful that with your support we can continue to climb the ladder. Getting featured on IndieGoGo’s homepage could mean great things for our project, cause and the future of ProFellow. Thank you so much for getting behind our project, and please keep up the amazing work that you’re doing to spread the word.
Our vision for ProFellow.com is a website where people can search thousands of fellowships, receive solid advice from fellowship experts, and find mentors, ideas and partnerships to help you do something exceptional. But turning a vision into reality takes more than just an idea.
1. Developing and running a website is pricey (at least for people like us!)
We have been planning ProFellow.com since November 2010 and it might surprise you (it surprised me!) how much planning it takes to develop a website with a searchable database, and how much moola it takes to hire someone to create it! While Ryan and I have put countless hours into research, creating page layouts, and planning the user functionality of the site, unfortunately we are not programmers. But we believe in this idea so much that we’ve invested our personal savings and some debt into hiring a developer to create the site, which will launch in September. Even so, it probably won’t be perfect at first and we’ll need IT help to maintain and improve the site. We believe it will be worth every dime!
2. We need to work full-time on ProFellow to make it not just good, but great
The first year of our site will take a lot of elbow grease. In order to get a lot of people excited about finding fellowships on ProFellow, we believe we need at least 1,000 fellowships in the database for a wide variety of disciplines and interests. The reality is, as a virtually unknown website, we will have to add 90% of those fellowships ourselves (yes – 900 fellowship records!). That is the quickest and dirtiest avenue to getting a database full of fellowships, and it can be done – it will be done! – especially if we meet our IndieGoGo goal and can work on the website full-time beginning in September. Once we prove ProFellow is a useful website, we believe fellowship programs and universities will be interested in adding fellowships themselves, which will help us significantly. Meanwhile, we will take as many free opportunities as we can to spread the word about the ProFellow database through email, social media and articles in newsletters and local newspapers.
3. We are seeking every avenue of funding and in-kind support
The fact of the matter is, we need a lot more money than $10K to turn ProFellow into a viable website, so we are seeking every avenue of funding and in-kind support that we can. Friends and family have really helped us a lot so far – everything from advice on hiring a developer to help filming our IndieGoGo movie. Also, we are always on the lookout for free stuff – for example, we got a free press release from PRWeb.com – normally $200! We’ve also found discounts on web hosting, business cards, prizes, etc. If you know of discounts and free services that might be helpful to us, please let us know!
4. Success takes more than just money
More important than the amount of money we raise on IndieGoGo is the number of people backing us. If we can show the world that there are people who value our idea and believe we can be successful, we are a million times more likely to turn ProFellow into viable website. That’s why as little as $10 from a backer can go a long way! Having lots of backers now will help us find more support and funding the future.
We hope you’ll join our movement to create the largest online database of professional and academic fellowships in the world! Thanks so much for your support!
Well we’re now five days into our IndieGoGo campaign–1,000 Fellowships in 183 Days–so we thought we’d share what we’ve learned so far about online fundraising!
1. Just because it’s online doesn’t mean that it’s easy
The success that some have found on the Internet often convinces many of us that achieving success online is easy, that all it takes is a halfhearted post into cyberspace and within 24 hours the post makes front page news. Well, after three weeks of planning and preparation, and consecutive 18 hour days, I’m willing to go out on a limb to suggest that this is not the case 
.
2. Never underestimate the generosity of friends and family
Vicki and I have been blown away with the support we’ve received from our family and friends. We believe very strongly in our cause and project and are so thrilled that others believe in it too.
3. Sharing is caring
One of the more difficult aspects of online fundraising is reaching people outside of your friends and family network. Try all you want, but pleading your case to strangers doesn’t work and will likely yield negative results. Conversely, when someone that supports your cause shares your project it speaks volumes about both the relevance of your project and that person’s belief in you to deliver.
4. Be thankful
We want to thank everyone who has gone out of their way so far to back and share our project. Your support means more than you could ever imagine to Vicki and I, and further strengthens our desire to educate the world about fellowships. We’re early into our campaign and recognize there is still a lot of hard work ahead of us. However, we’re looking forward to the challenge, and to working even harder over the next 57 days to reach our fundraising goal. We’ll keep you updated in the weeks to come. Thank you so much!
We’ve just launched a 60-day campaign on IndieGoGo.com to raise $10,000 to find 1,000 fellowships in 183 days for the ProFellow database. All IndieGoGo backers receive prizes in exchange for a contribution. Prizes range from shout outs on social media and participation in our private Beta to our grand prize of one week’s accomodation in New Zealand! Also, over the course of the campaign, which runs until September 5, all IndieGoGo backers will be entered into 4 drawings for a $25 Visa gift card. The first drawing will be Wednesday, July 13! So, the sooner you become a backer, the more chances you have to win. Follow ProFellow.com on Facebook and Twitter for announcements and stories about the Fellows featured in our IndieGoGo video.