How do you guys get funding for your projects? My team has a wonderful design that will probably never see the light of day due to lack of funds. We are expecting upwards of $7.5k for the project, something that none of us can manage.
We have thought about kickstarter, but I personally don't see the appeal. Why would someone donate $100 for ANOTHER PERSON to go do something? It's a donation, sure, but what does the donator get out of it? For Video Games/Movies/other content, the donate gets the content. This is why Kickstarter is successful in this category. What exactly does the donator get in our case, save for a magnificent view of earth from onboard our project? I would never pay $10, let alone $100 for that, and I don't know anyone else who would.
Another option is a capital investment from a single source. How would you convince someone to give you $7.5k to send a sounding rocket to 200,000 feet? The same with kickstarter, what exactly would they get out of it? CSXT got a lot of funding from the GoFast energy drink company. How did Ky manage to swing this? Was it simply because it was a large, historic event? The recent "Aeropac 100k" project in 2012 got funding from Google, I believe since Google wanted to do a commerical based on the project. In both of these examples, the donator got their name heard. (google has not yet, although I hear they are going to release the commerical sometime this fall) Everyone in the rocketry community heard of the "GoFast Rocket", and the google commercial will likely bring more revenue in sales than they spent.
</wall of text>Maybe I seem negative. What have you guys tried/thought about? I am open to any suggestions, and I would love to get this project started.
