9 replies to this topic

[Austin55]

Some of you may have heard of the website Kickstarter, where people can donate money in order to fund projects or ideas. In some cases, this has been applied to public works projects or other ideas. 

 

If Fort Worth or it's citizens were to host an idea, what sort of projects would like to see, and do you think it would get funded? Public Art? Small business? Urban Farms? Education classes?

 

 

[Dylan]

I know the new plaza will have a bunch of small fountains, but I'm thinking of maybe a large fountain surrounded by grass and trees in the middle of a full-sized surface lot downtown (with no pavement except for the sidewalk along the street). The old landmark tower site would be a good location.

 

Might be a good idea to have a large fountain somewhere along West 7th or Magnolia as well.

[Austin55]

All good ideas. Would like to hear what other members of FWF have to say. I think such websites are an amazing way of truly getting involved and making a difference rather than just talking about it. 

Some more ideas, some of which I drew from a thread on Reddit.

 

-Fund better block projects 

-Fund splash play areas for neighborhoods

-Fund playgrounds and parks

-Fund More public art

-Perhaps help fund a way to bring back "The Eagle" sculpture

-Fund talking walk signals for the blind at intersections

-Fund free Spay-neuter clinics

-Fund painting of additional bike lanes

-Fund urban gardens and a farmers market

-Fund libraries to expand book collections.

-Fund high speed wifi hotspots

-Fund rehabilitation of historic buildings

-Fund classes for certain things like photography or job interview skills

-Fund for an expanded bike share system

-Fund other sidewalk utilities, like dog poop stations or bike repair stations

-Fund programs to help the homeless

-Fund a streetcar line 

[johnfwd]

The above list covers a wide range of public-private funded projects related to the arts, education, recreation, environmental quality, transportation, and charities. I like parks and visit one in particular on occasion, Z Boaz park south on the former "old Stove Foundry Road" now Vickery as you're headed to Benbrook.  That park has always needed to be cleaned up, what with a lot of litter among the trees, and on the Mary's Creek bed.  Some parts of it also need to be restored for public access. I was disappointed some time ago when the south side of the park (across the tracks) that used to be accessible to the pubic is now devoted primarily to frizbie throwers (nothing against this form of sports, it's just too exclusive to the general public).

 

I know the above is not particularly relevant to your thread, Austin.  How about, what is the "Eagle" sculpture?  Not familiar with it.   

[Austin55]

Relevant enough! See, that's a perfect idea for a kickstarter. "Clean up and restore Z Boaz park". The trick is, can it get funded? 

 

Here's a wikipedia article on Eagle.

http://en.wikipedia..../Eagle_(Calder)

[AndyN]

I should look into this. North Texas Historic Transportation, Inc. is just about to start a capital campaign to raise funds for a workshop/storage/museum space. It would provide a permanent home for our collection of Fort Worth streetcars and Tandy Subway cars. Trying to raise $300k.

 

We also have registered for North Texas Giving Day! and hope to be included on that coordinated day of giving.

 

www.northtexastransport.org

[cberen1]

The key, as I understand it, to crowdsourcing is momentum.  What is it that makes something go viral on the internet?  Malcom Gladwell wrote a book called "The TIpping Point" that kind of addresses this particular issue.  Interesting to read.

 

Anyway, the issue is going to be finding a project that captures people's attention either by its worthiness or its undeniable coolness.  The cool thing about crowdsourcing is its democratic approach.  What nobody talks about is all teh stuff that can't get funded.  Oh well.  Everything that's been mentioned is local stuff, so the market for funding is likely to be very local.  I could see Joel Burns being able to fund an anti-bullying initiative or Wendy Davis sponsoring one of her per projects and gaining broader geographical appeal for crowdsourcing funds because they managed to gain some national attention for their causes.  Otherwise I think it falls to local folks who are comfortable with the internet and passionate about doing good.  Probably a higher concentration of givers among the young than the more mature citizens.

 

So, I could see something getting traction if it was local to West 7th or idealogically aligned with the interests of people Fairmount.  I think the Fairmount folks already have a history of getting organized, supporting local stuff, being more trendy and very willing to do something outside of the Keller cookie cutter suburban norm.  There also seems to be a sense of ownership of place in Fairmount, and I think that kind of attitude about one's surroundings would not be too different from the attitude that people would need to buy into crowdsourcing.  I think West 7th could work because it's predominantly young, employed people and if they found something that would selfishly make their lives better, they could get behind crowdsourcing the funding for it.

 

So that's my analysis.  My suggestions would be a dogpark or local theater company (or upstart BYOB live music venue) in West 7th (perhaps in Billingsley Fieldhouse).  In Fairmount I could see any number of things working.  Maybe a blight project, public art, spay/neuter project, free clinic of some kind, I bet there's already some stuff underway in Fairmount that would work better than what I might come up with by brainstorming.

 

Again, I think the key is having a project that can reach critical mass and is pointed at a specific target demographic that is generally younger and/or cause oriented.

[Austin55]

I agree absolutly about the effected area of such a project being the key. Southside absolutely seems to me to be the most likely area to get on board with something. There is just a bit of that selfless culture there, (yarn bombing is one example, no one is getting paid for that, but it's a cool thing to see around the community) and a real sense of community. I'm pretty sure they have already done some things on there own or with near-southside inc. 

 

West 7th seems a bit more like a place where the wealthy youth like to hang on to there money and use it for themselves, perhaps. Not a bad thing by any means, just a different culture in a different part of town. 

I think downtown also would have a lot of pull from local government, business owners, and even perhaps the corporate level.

 

 

Below is a link of all the projects on kickstarter tagged with the word "Civic". I think that will show people what sort of ideas exist and what gets funded and not. 

http://www.kickstart...r/tags/civic#p1

 

I just think it would be neat if this forum could be used as a launching pad of sorts to actually help improve the community rather than just discuss it. 

[gdvanc]

I haven't thought of anything brilliant yet (shock!) but thought I'd pass these along as samples alternatives to KickStarter that are more targeted to civic projects:

 

ioby ("in our back yard" - started in NYNY but now open to all - seems to be focused on clean-up/neighborhood improvement projects)

 

SpaceHive (not sure if used outside the UK, but might be worth a look for ideas)

 

I'll also throw out the idea of creating a web-based wish list for local projects that allows people to vote with their wallets and that would result in the projects getting started when sufficient funds have been completed. Similar to Kickstarter/ioby/SpaceHive but with a local focus - making it easy for people to see and track suggested local projects. And, @cberen1, it could be an answer to your question on another thread on how these get started and funded.

 

 

 

--Edit:

Also, there's http://neighbor.ly/.

[Volare]

The Citizen Theater was fundraising from the public, but I haven't heard anything from them in years.