Jarrett and I are very excited about all of the great SciFund Challenge science projects that are coming together – everything from uncovering the secrets in ancient Roman DNA to figuring out why a certain dolphin species has its dorsal fin backwards. All SciFund projects will be launching on November 1st, which is coming up fast. We want to tell you about some upcoming key deadlines for SciFund people.
October 25. By this date, everyone who plans to participate in the Challenge must have a draft project uploaded onto the SciFund site for feedback from other SciFund participants. All SciFunders should have received an invitation to join the SciFund feedback site over a week ago. If you haven’t received the invitation, please contact either myself or Jarrett ASAP (e-mail addresses: jai.ranganathan@gmail.com, byrnes@nceas.ucsb.edu). If circumstances don’t allow you to have a draft project uploaded by October 25, please contact Jarrett and myself for consideration. When your project is uploaded and ready for feedback, please send a note to the SciFund google group, so that others know you need help. You can also send a tweet via Twitter (be sure to use the #SciFund hashtag so that other SciFunders can find you).
October 29. By this date, SciFund Challenge projects must be finalized and uploaded to RocketHub’s site. SciFunders will receive instructions next week about how to upload projects to RocketHub.
November 1. SciFund Challenge projects go live on RocketHub!
So, the clock is ticking down! If you haven’t already, please do take a look at the draft projects on the SciFund site so that you can give feedback to your fellow SciFunders.
Lastly, Jarrett and I love the creative rewards that SciFunders are dreaming up for their crowdfunding projects. However, we have been told by RocketHub that there are two kinds of rewards that you are not allowed to offer, as they would be illegal. The first is an offer of equity in a business venture (this won’t be coming up much with our projects). The second prohibited type of reward is a raffle, which has been coming up with some of the draft projects (if you give X dollars, you’ll be entered into a drawing to win Y prize). There are narrow exceptions to the raffle prohibition (and RocketHub’s lawyers are figuring out whether SciFund can squeeze into those exceptions), but stay clear of raffles, for now.
