Success!! And Thank Yous. And How You Can Still Support The Kenosha Festival of Cartooning!

I am thrilled to announce that we made our Kickstarter goal and raised a total of $13,600 for this year's Kenosha Festival of Cartooning!

A Huge, Huge THANK YOU to everyone who backed the project and helped spread the word via blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Special thanks to:

Tom Racine for helping me make the great video, for endless social networking and for interviewing me on Tall Tale Radio. I have the backer report now and it shows conclusively that the podcast generated more $ in pledges than any other source.

Rick Stromoski - President of the National Cartoonist Society Foundation - who felt that the Festival and the Foundation have similar goals and would be a good match. Without the Foundation's generosity, I am fairly confident I would have come up short on Kickstarter.

The NCSF board who unanimously agreed with Rick and supported his vision to help fund the festival.

Tom Richmond who generously offered to donate original MAD art as an extra backer reward and who blogged about the festival tirelessly.

Michael Jantze who offered sketches to anyone pledging $50 or more - including folks who had already pledged. In the days following his offer, I received several $50 pledges and I know that is no accident!

Alan Gardener and Mike Peterson who also blogged tirelessly about the Kickstarter Drive.

David Hurley who interviewed me on his blog Don't Pick The Flowers.

All of the above folks also personally made pledges to the project, for which I also thank them profusely!

A Little Business.....

On the business side, and in the interest of both transparency and a desire to be helpful to others who may wish to use Kickstarter:

Kickstarter DOES charge a fee for its services. 5% of total money raised.

So does Amazon - 3%-5% of all payments processed through Amazon. (I find this phrasing a little disingenuous as it is not possible to pledge to Kickstarter any other way but through Amazon)

This means that, of the $13,600 raised, anywhere from $1088 to $1360 will go, not to the festival, but to Kickstarter and Amazon.

I don't have a problem with this - I knew it going in when I agreed to Kickstarter's terms - but if you are planning to use Kickstarter to fund a project BE SURE TO FACTOR THESE FEES INTO THE AMOUNT AT WHICH YOU SET YOUR GOAL!

The $10,000 I asked for represents about 80% of my total projected budget for the 2012 festival. So the extra money we raised will help cover a larger percentage of festival expenses, and also the $1000-$1300 I will have to give to Kickstarter and Amazon.

Final Word

I decided to do the Festival in 2012 because there seemed to be a lot of genuine excitement about having another one. Immediately in the wake of the first festival a few folks made donations hoping there would be another.

I still have a paypal donation button up on the Official Festival Site - if you are excited enough about this festival that you would like to see it become a regular fixture in the cartooning firmament, please don't hesitate to head over and make a donation. I will honor the same backer rewards as on Kickstarter - Click on Support The Festival for more information on rewards.

Any donations not needed for the 2012 festival will be rolled over for future festivals.

We've Made It!!

We've made our funding goal, and then some! Head over to Kickstarter Updates for full details!

New Guest Speaker!

I am optimistic that we will meet our Kickstarter Goal and am very excited to announce that Hilary Price is joining us to round out our guest speaker roster for September.

I've been a fan of Hilary's fabulous strip "Rhymes With Orange" for a long time and am thrilled that she will be joining us!

Our current total, with NCSF matching funds, is $7714. Which leaves us needing only $1,143 to make our $10,000 goal.

But we only have until 5:00 pm CST tomorrow (May 22) to get this done.

Head over and Pledge!

Are You Waiting For The Dramatic Moment?

 We have only 5 DAYS TO GO to meet our goal!

To those of you who have already backed the Festival - Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

To those of you who are waiting for a BIG DRAMATIC MOMENT so put us over the top - "NOW WOULD BE A GOOD TIME, SCOTTY!"

I would also like to thank the folks who helped me get the word out about the fund drive this week. 

First, thank you David Hurley for posting a big article about the festival on your blog "Don't Pick The Flowers". In this post, I go into a little more detail about the city of Kenosha and I managed to scrape up a few good pictures from last year's festival compliments of Kenny Durkin's Blog.

Second, Thanks to Greg Berg who squeezed me in to the first 20 minutes of the morning show for Wednesday, 5/16 on WGTD (If you're looking for it in the archives, it's the show that features Mike Doughty)

Third, thanks to Mike Peterson who made me laugh with his stern scolding to non backers over on his blog "Comic Strip of The Day" Here is a fabulous quote from his blog - after you finish reading it, head over and read all the other pithy things he writes there, it is one of the best blogs on comics out there:

"So here's my argument:  It may well be that you aren't giving because you can't get to Kenosha and so you feel you won't benefit.

But don't you know anyone in Chicago (which is only 65 miles away) or Milwaukee (which is even closer)? 

Make a donation and send them an email that says, "I got you a present: Free admission to this really great festival! Sure, you can take one of your friends. Hey, wotthehell, take them both!"

"Let George do it" won't work. I'm George. I already donated.

Now it's your play."

And fourth, thanks to everyone who keeps continuously retweeting and sharing on facebook.

Let's get this done, shall we?!

Exciting News! A Matching Offer!

It is with great excitement that I am able to announce that the National Cartoonist Society Foundation has contacted me and offered to match each new donation until we reach our $10,000 goal!!

What does this mean? It means that your pledge will now go twice as far! For example, your $50 pledge will bring in $100 to the project after the foundation matches it. (Rewards will still be given based on your individual pledge amount, not the doubled amount.)

I cannot thank the foundation enough for this generous offer!

If you've been waiting for an exciting time to donate - it would be now!!!!

Only 13 days to go!!

Head over to Kickstarter here.