At the moment, I generally avoid giving money to crowd-funding projects as most of them are, to my mind, akin to begging – such as, ‘give me money to study so that I can save the world ‘, ‘give me money as I need to go to exotic places to take pictures’, and, my favourite, ‘I have been working so hard that you should fund my holiday’.
However, I am coming across more projects recently where I feel that 1. the projects are worth doing, 2. the reciprocity is equitable to the amounts, and 3. its from people I know. Which brings me to this – how does one gauge one’s commitment to a friend’s project? Well, I have been thinking of this over the last few months as a variety of friends are beginning to use crowd funding to raise money for various projects and here is my thinking.
Factors to consider for crowd funding friends projects;
- number of mutual connections – do you have many friends you have in common?
- no.of connections per week – how often do you speak, text or meet each other?
- viability of friendship in foreseeable future – how likely is this friendship will last?
- future favour debt – how likely is it that you can call in favours in the future?
- current salary level – how much you earn compared to your mutual connections?
- risk of precedence – what are the chances that this commitment will be one that others will compare to next time?
Then answer the questions using LOW, MEDIUM and HIGH.
Calculate your score where LOW = 1, MEDIUM = 2 and HIGH = 3
If you score 9 or less, then go for the lower end of options. If you score between 10 – 14, then go for the middle range of options. If you score above 15, then you have to go the higher end options.
I am going to be using this to assess the next few projects from my friends that come past me. Lets see if this works.