Crowdsourcing

A GUIDE TO LANSING-AREA ONLINE FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGNS

highlights local crowdsourcing campaigns.

To find the events, go to the designated website and search by title.

If you have a crowdsourcing event to promote, send a link and short description to eve@lansingcitypulse.com.

Fund Dragzilla Preview & Premiere at NYC Rupaul’s Drag Con: ow.ly/l19M30dhgX0

As RuPaul would say, “Gentlemen, start your engines!” It is a race to RuPaul’s New York City Drag Con for one aspiring comic book artist, Derek Stephens. Currently homeless in Lansing, he hopes to premiere his comic DragZilla at the convention.

The superhero story is set in a fictional 1970s city comparable to San Francisco called Straightlandia. In this homophobic metropolis, hate crimes against the LGBTQ community run rampant and any form of queerness is outlawed.

After a vicious beating by the bigoted villain, main character Andrew is visited by his fairy drag-mother, Glimmer, who turns him into the superhero DragZilla. DragZilla then goes on to stand up to the injustices of Straightlandia and fight for the safety of the LGBT community.

Stephens launched the campaign in hopes of raising $3,000 to cover the various expenses that the trip to New York will entail such as gas, a DragZilla costume, the Drag Con booth and merchandise.

“I have a strong support system and people will help me during this process. So the biggest hurdle will be raising the money,” Stephens said in the campaign.

Donations range from $10 to $1,000 and earn contributors gifts like a Drag- Zilla goodie bag, a guest appearance in the first edition of DragZilla, becoming a DragZilla sponsor and joining the DragZilla crew at Drag Con. This project will only be funded if it meets its fundraising goal by July 29.

St. Paul’s 21st Century Restoration gofundme.com/SP21Restore

Right off of North Capitol stands St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, though not so steadily. After an especially blustery day, the staff found that the church’s southern wall had moved, threatening structural collapse. In their attempts to correct the issue, they discovered a multitude of other issues with the building.

Currently, the restoration project estimates are over $1 million, with the structural engineer still harboring concerns about pieces of the building still hidden and requiring assessment.

The money raised will go towards not only salvaging the Te Deum window and southern wall, but also restoring the rest of the building in honor of the “lives of all the faithful which have been recognized and sanctified here in this space over the past 100 years,” according to the campaign page. This effort has no expiration date at this time.

Rabbit Island: Explore, Build, Conquer! ow.ly/LKv330dhhPJ

Every-bunny will enjoy this tile-laying modular board game that changes every time its played.

Lead your tribe to explore a new island every game, build up your civilization with the value of the Carrot, and the help of special Action Cards, then try to conquer opponents within 20 rounds.

Rabbit Island was created by Infinite Heart Games, LLC, a small indie game company based in Richmond, Virginia that started up in 2014. The slogan for the company is, “We design and publish the kinds of games that we like to play!” Amber Scharf, who graduated from Michigan State University, created the illustrations for the board game.

The Kickstarter for Rabbit Island has many different levels of contributions, ranging from $1 to $200. Donations of $36 and up act as pre-sale of the game and a special thank you written in the rulebook for helping. There are limited edition opportunities up for grabs also with select donations.

The goal for this project is $14,500 and is an all or nothing Kickstarter. Without the full amount reached by 6 p.m. on July 17, this project won’t be funded and no island will be explored, built or conquered.