crowdfunding for projects

Here is some information on crowdfunding if your not familiar:

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-05-29/crowd-funding-we...

Interesting idea, Chad!

Most of the crowdfunding websites I'm seeing are charging about 4% on top of the credit card acceptance fees. (paypal-like)

Geni could have so that curators moderate and can contact descendants, only pros can attach pledge requests, and Geni gets the added 4% of total project funding.

Geni could then also list site enhancements as projects and those members, paying or not could pledge if that's something they are wanting to see.

By the way, projects only get funded and people are only charged if the project hits their requested goal amount.

Interesting idea, can you give an example of what a project would be that one might fund? I can think of DNA projects off the top of my head, and also ordering of original documents for a common ancestor....Not sure how successful crowdfunding would be for genealogy but if it worked it would be wonderful!

Kris, your examples were exactly what I was thinking. The scanning of old photos or documents, ordering a book to be scanned, asking someone to go to the location of the source and find the material.

If Geni has 60 million living profiles, only those interested in seeing results will get involved. Some don't have the time or skill but would pay a small amount for the final material and not have to commit monthly for a year. This way they know what they are getting.

My thoughts stemmed from family associations. You'd pay an annual fee to belong to the association knowing that you're paying for the time and costs of someone doing research. On Geni, we're paying for the access to that information but not the cost of research.