CROWDFUNDING: A LOOK BACK AT 2013

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Last year we took a look at several Denton locals that took the leap of faith and put their plans in your hands with crowdfunding campaigns. Some were successful, some are still hard at work raisin additional funds through other means, and some didn't work out super well. Whichever it may be, we wanted to check back in and see where a few of them are now. Read on to see what your hard earned dollars and support helped with.  

Splash Park 

The Denton splash park efforts were seemingly everywhere this summer. One of the biggest fundraising efforts though was their Indiegogo campaign that started back in August. Of the $100,000 they were asking for, they've raised just over $6,000. However, through all of their efforts they've gotten the attention of the city and the parks department. Apparently the group behind the efforts has plans for more fundraisers in the spring as weather heats up and we are quickly reminded why a splash park would be a great addition to our city's landscape. They are also looking into neighborhood empowerment grants and a few other options for raising money. They are working on putting together a website, getting t-shirts printed and collecting more in-kind donations to help spur on the effort. It's good to know that there may still be a day in the not-so-far-off future we may just have a splash park to add to our cooling down strategies in the heat of the summer. 

 

Soma Massage 

Soma, a local massage company owned by neighborhood powerhouse Amber Briggle started an Indiegogo campaign to help expand her business. She had outgrown the space in her home and was ready to relocate to an office, hire a few more staff and watch her small business grow beyond the four walls it had previously been in. After her campaigning she was able to move that business into a new address, just a mile away from home. She has also doubled her staff, hiring four therapists, a part time office admin, and a web guy. Way to go local business! 

 

Robert Gomez, Earth Underfoot

Talented local musician Robert Gomez asked for funds through Kickstarter to help record his fourth album. After a successful campaign, he recorded the album "Earth Underfoot" in September at Redwood Recording Studios in Denton, TX. A few days ago the album was mixed and hopefully will be released soon. We can't wait to hear it Rob. If you want to follow the progress of the project, updates are posted regularly on his artist page here. 

 

Explorium Children's Science  

Explorium Denton is a proposed interactive children's science museum for our city. A place where our kid's minds can be expanded and challenged with a range of interactive exhibits. The campaign is being led by Anyah Martinez, a local mom who is incredibly active in the Denton community. The campaign hasn't raised the funds it needs, but since it's through GoFundMe there is no end date. Anyah is working on making more promo videos in hopes to get the support of potential donors in the future. We're hoping to see more action on this project as we believe that an interactive science museum for our kids would be a pretty cool thing. 

 

Rabbit Hole Brewing 

Local brewers Rabbit Hole launched a campaign to help fund their beer brewing efforts. Never a city to turn down more alcohol, especially craft beer, we weren't surprised when they exceeded their fundraising goals. They recently launched their first two beers at Oak Street Draft House and East Side Social Clube. They Mike Modano's 561 Kolsch and the Rapture Brown Ale. They are now available at 20 different locations across the Metroplex and have more on the way. 

 

Bookish Coffee  

2013 was an exciting year for Bookish. After reaching their goals on Kickstarter, they were able to purchase a 12 kilo roaster, thats four times larger than the one they had been roasting on. Since then owner Clay Rozell has been learning and tweaking roast profiles with the new roaster, trying to extract the best flavor from the beans. Because of his new production capabilities he is better able to leverage his position with other companies to get his product onto more shelves. Right now he is working with Natural Grocers to get Bookish into more stores around the metroplex and he is working hard to get into a few other grocery stores in the area. Alongside being available in more stores, he is stocking beans in Big Mike's coffee rotation and into the Cyber Cafe in the UNT library. The growth of Bookish hasn't only been great for Bookish, it's also allowed them to give back to the Denton community a good bit. They were awarded the "Top Adopter Best Adopter in 2013" by the Denton Independent School District and Chamber of Commerce. They are also committed to supporting the Denton Area Younglife and their mission in Denton. According to Clay they success of the Kickstarter campaign really gave Bookish the boost it neeaded to become a more viable business and a bigger part of the community. 

 

 

DENTON CROWDFUNDING: OCTOBER

Denton Femme Fest is just one of the three things you can donate to that we are highlighting this month. 

Denton Femme Fest is just one of the three things you can donate to that we are highlighting this month. 

It’s been a while since we last took a while at the Denton crowdfunding scene. For those not in the know, crowd funding is sourcing money from local friends, family and invested peoples to help fund your project, idea or startup. We heard tell of a few projects making the rounds and figured it was as good of a time as any to search through Kickstarter, IndieGoGo and a few others to bring to you the best of crowdfunding that Denton has to offer.

Have a look through the following three campaigns and decide for yourself if one tickles your fancy. If so, hurry over to their page and donate. You’ll feel good about yourself for the rest of the day and probably get a prize later on.



Odds are if you have a kid and follow the Den10, you’ve crossed paths with Anyah Brittain Martinez and a baby version of the Explorium before. She’s often up at the Community Market on Saturday mornings with engaging toys, activities and craft projects for youngsters. The Explorium is a hopeful children’s science museum to be located in Denton, TX that Martinez would like to open. Proceeds from this campaign will go towards renting an actual physical space for the Explorium to operate their various exhibits within.

Every once in a while we get jealous of larger cities and their many kid-friendly activities. It always happens when we visit the Austin Children’s Museum, the Ft. Worth Museum of Science and History does it, and now that the new Perot Museum is open in Dallas, it happens more than ever. We know this is a project on maybe 1/1000th of that scale, but something is better than nothing, and a little bit of heart can go a long way. Denton kids are in dire need of something like this. Unfortunately for us, there isn’t anyone with the last name Perot or overly-deep pockets living within our city limits with a foundation that needs to expel super large amounts of money. Maybe one day, but not now. For now, it’s up to us. If you can, donate to this project. It really does seem to have the best of the community in mind. The Explorium is looking for funding through “GoFundMe,” so don’t expect any silly gifts in return (it’s more like donating to a public broadcaster except with less guilt beforehand) - just the honest feeling of knowing you tried to help something good happen.

 

 

Local community activist and super-active social media person, Amber Briggle, has been in this column before. Last time we saw Briggle, she was pushing for a splash park, and while that’s still in the works, she’s back again, this time for her own, personal massage business, Soma Massage Therapy. Soma, apparently, is looking to grow.

Briggle wants to move her business out of her home and into a new space, get a new logo, and purchase some new equipment, amongst other things. This new space will also allow her to hire a few new massage therapists, as well. If you’re looking to get a massage yourself, why not go ahead and make a donation (a $100 will get you a massage and you’ll have that civic pride feeling) or, if you have more of a sweet tooth than you do back problems (boy do we envy you), make a donation of $25 and Briggle will bake you up a batch of your favorite cookies. 

If you’re interest in becoming more of a mover and shaker in the community and you like the cut of Briggle’s jib, you can attend this Saturday’s Neighborhood Empowerment Summit at the Denton Civic Center at which Briggle (and a few other cool people) will be giving some words of advice and sharing her experiences.


Here’s a quick and easy one, Daisy Salinas is looking for $200 to fund the Second Annual Denton Femme Fest at Mable Peabody’s. It looks as if it’s going to be a sure thing as they have already almost met their funding goal and the date for the shindig has already been set for November 23rd at Mable Peabody's. The event looks to have it all, complete with dancing, spoken word, a visual art auction, and “diverse” musical performances. In this particular case, your cold, hard cash goes not only towards the production fees associated with making this festival happen, but also the creation of local Latin zine creator’s, Muchacha Fanzine’s, upcoming issue entitled, “Nuestros Cuerpos/Our Bodies." A donation of as little as $5 will get you a single copy of one of their past zines of your choice. You can check out their old zines on their Etsy page.

 

DENTON CROWDFUNDING: AUGUST

It's been a while, but the crowdfunding scene in Denton is at a boil currently, so we figured it was as good a time as any to search through Kickstarter, IndieGoGo and a few others to bring to you the best of crowdfunding that Denton has to offer. Go ahead and read through the following campaigns. If something strikes your fancy, please donate and feel good about yourself for the rest of the day.  

Denton Community Splash Park

With tomorrow’s Better Block’s meeting, the idea of making change happen is hot on the mind of Dentonites. This campaign, initiated by local mover and shaker, Amber Briggle, evokes that mindset in spades. If the concept of a “splash pad” doesn’t evoke anything in your mind, imagine the summers your spent in your front yard, running through the water spray from the nearby oscillating sprinkler. Well, a “splash pad” is kind of like that. It’s an area with multiple streams of water in various arrangements, with multiple drains preventing said water from pooling. It’s fun and kids love ‘em. Maybe you’ve seen a small one behind the Barnes and Noble in Highland Village.

Briggle has spoken with the powers-that-be at the city level and been promised that if she raises the funds, the park would be built. If not this year, then in the next year. Briggle went on to say, “The goal… is to bring this money to City Council, show them how serious we are about this, and hope that they can meet us the rest of the way so we can get this built in the next year!

Many Denton artists and businesses have donated their time and products as incentives to donators. $500 will net you your own Paul Slavens concert, $150 will get you an engraved brick on the site and a donation of $250 will allow you and seven of your friends to yell at Kevin Roden about politics of your choice at your very own Drink and Think.

Donate here. 

Denton Holiday Lighting Festival Song Compilation

The event commonly known as “The Tree Lighting,” “wassail fest,” or “Kettle Korn Time,” is actually the “The Denton Holiday Lighting Festival.” It’s a free event in December every year that you probably already go to (we just learned that every year a commemorative Denton Christmas ornament is produced - how do we not already have all of them?).

This year, they’re producing a compilation CD in celebration of their 25th anniversary. The compilation will be full of of their favorite holiday performances from Denton bands. You can look forward to hearing Sarah Jaffe, Boxcar Bandits, the Denton Community Band and many others on this multi-decade spanning compilation. Our friend Nick is the only person we know who still buys CDs. Thankfully, the crew behind the The Denton Holiday Lighting Fesitval also plans on making the album available to purchase online, as well.

Donations to the cause can get you cool swag like T-shirts and framed photos.

Donate here. 

 

Two Hearts, 6,100 Miles Apart

Well, this is a tough one. Local artist, Michael Todd, is looking to fund a trip to Paris to meet his longtime Russian internet girlfriend, Anastasia. He's looking for $25,000 in order to travel the 6,100 miles distance, document said experience through professional means and to then get their story out to the masses in the form of a documentary and follow-up book. While we were left wanting to call Max and Nev of Catfish after reading Todd's novel of a explanation (which we highly encourage you to read, yourself) on his IndieGoGo campaign, something kept us from finding their contact info on MTV.com. We want to read this book. We would pay $12/ticket to get the chance to see this documentary. While our pessimism forces us to doubt the legitimacy of Todd's girlfriends' story, either way, it would be wonderful to watch. Donations will get you the normal digital download or sponsorship credit, but we also found it interesting that they're offering the ability to go to the screening of your choice, naming SXSW, NYFILM and Sundance as future screenings. "Dream big and love conquers all," right? 

Donate here.