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The kinds of rewards that make sense to me vary greatly depending on the kind of project. For many hardware projects with physical rewards inherent in the project itself, sometimes it's better to try to reduce the number of other things you offer as reward. I find that these projects are best served by offering an "early backer special" to increase the urgency and boost your early support.

That said, for a hardware project in the past that was oriented toward an audience of hardware tinkerers, I added a low-tier reward that included only a bare circuit board of my product. This is an extremely easy/cheap reward to add because you're mass producing the circuit boards anyway and especially if you make your circuit board pretty, distinctive, and sporting your logo.. your backers can use it as a decoration or a coaster.

For non-hardware products, the best backer reward I ever got was a hand-painted piece of art by the creator of the project. The art wasn't particularly elaborate, but she took requests/suggestions for each piece and the resulting piece was not only very attractive, but completely unique. In fact.. I'm not sure I could find the main reward for that project, but the art still hands on my wall.

Rewards can be tricky to balance!

If it is a Cause-based kickstarter, many backers might prefer that the campaign funds go towards the actual intended purpose, not towards t-shirts, or other promotional items. But those t-shirts also help spread awareness of the Cause and it is always nice to get something tangible in return.

If it is a Product-based campaign, then I prefer to get the item at a discount, and in advance of the general public as my main reward. If there are extras to be added, maybe some additional customization option, a "premium" option, or a personalized component, that is always awesome!

Someone suggesting giving credit to donors -- can anyone tell me how to do that?? Like, if they contribute $20, they get $40 credit?

I think your best bet would be to simply keep track of these backers in a spreadsheet until you eventually have a webstore that can handle gift coupons or discount codes. Something like Shopify has a plugin for mass-generating these codes and you can set them to be one-use codes. Then you can use something like Mailchimp to email everyone in that category their own personalized code. (you could do this manually too.. depending on how many backers you have)

Post-funding parties always celebrate the success in obtaining funding.

Hello, I would like to present my DIY project, that I would like "one day" to become a real crowdfunding campaign. https://www.facebook.com/bauhauswerkstraps/?fref=ts
So I would really like to hear your opinion. Is this something worth posting on Kickstarter or wherever?

P.S. If you like it, please like&share the page. If not, you can delete the post. Anyway sorry for bothering you. Cheers!

I think that is awesome. I think sometimes we are so preoccupied with the seriousness because the project depends so much on money that we forget to take a step back and laugh at it. Throw something fun. Like for a buck kick my butt! Thanks for the share!

Amplex Corporation wrote:Rewards can be tricky to balance!

If it is a Cause-based kickstarter, many backers might prefer that the campaign funds go towards the actual intended purpose, not towards t-shirts, or other promotional items. But those t-shirts also help spread awareness of the Cause and it is always nice to get something tangible in return.

If it is a Product-based campaign, then I prefer to get the item at a discount, and in advance of the general public as my main reward. If there are extras to be added, maybe some additional customization option, a "premium" option, or a personalized component, that is always awesome!

I think it is a great idea when it comes to giving something concrete to backers, but I also see how that takes away from the project. I think it depends on the idea of your campaign. I thought about something like sending valentine cards with the poster of my kickstarter campaign which about keeping love strong. Great point you raise though. Thanks

Amplex Corporation wrote:Rewards can be tricky to balance!

If it is a Cause-based kickstarter, many backers might prefer that the campaign funds go towards the actual intended purpose, not towards t-shirts, or other promotional items. But those t-shirts also help spread awareness of the Cause and it is always nice to get something tangible in return.

If it is a Product-based campaign, then I prefer to get the item at a discount, and in advance of the general public as my main reward. If there are extras to be added, maybe some additional customization option, a "premium" option, or a personalized component, that is always awesome!

With our start up we talked about providing a discount to the actual MSRP. If retail price were $100, then for $5 you could get 5% off of retail price. We also wanted to set a limit of what the discount wouldl be. So if you donated $100, and the maximum discount was 75% off retail price, you could get 75% off one item and 25% off the second item. This would simplify shipping costs, but tracking rewards may be a little trickier.

I love the idea of backing other causes whilst building a reputation with the online community. Make art, or t shirts etc., something you love creating and want visibility with, whilst helping a good cause. Making your images mean more than face value, meaning helping Africa, or local animal shelters, people in poverty, self expression to help people is a really great thing.