When The Oatmeal’s Matthew Inman first used Indiegogo, his campaign raised $220,000 in two weeks. With his second campaign, “Let’s Build a Goddamn Tesla Museum,” he has raised four times that in less than a week, smashing through his original goal of $850,000. In doing so, over 20,000 people unlocked a matching grant from the state of New York for $850,000 to buy physicist and inventor Nikola Tesla’s old laboratory and turn it into a museum.
How does someone eclipse three-quarters of a million dollars in that little time? It’s not something that can be simply attributed to virality or humor — it’s a clear sign of networks of people around the world being brought together to act quickly on an idea, project, or cause that they care about. Communities like Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, and The Oatmeal’s fans and social networks were connected through the global platform of Indiegogo — enabling “geeks” from 102 countries to spread the word, unite through a shared passion, and bring Nikola Tesla out of underdog obscurity.
The people who contributed and continue to contribute to this campaign are becoming a part of history by creating something in the name of history. Nikola Tesla, a hero of unsung heroes, was exactly the kind of person who could have benefited from the empowerment, voice, and audience that global crowdfunding provides. His causes and creations, Matthew Inman would call them “geeky,” can now reach a larger audience than ever before.
Through his Indiegogo campaign, Matthew Inman is helping write a chapter in Tesla’s biography that had yet to be written. And over 20,000 people are helping him do it.
Check out more Indiegogo campaigns!
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I am very happy that Indiegogo is a website built to help people of all circles of life striving to make their dreams become a reality. We also have a campaign on indiegogo, not doing quite as well as Matthew, but we are one step closer everyday!
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I’d like to see the list for countries in $/capita, too… Australia is the 4th highest contributor, but we only have ~22.5m people!
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Truly amazing!!!! I am very happy that Indiegogo is a website built to help people of all circles of life striving to make their dreams become a reality. We also have a campaign on indiegogo, not doing quite as well as Matthew, but we are one step closer everyday! Thank you to all who support all of these campaigns, true kindness is within all of us! http://igg.me/p/220506?a=1172425
Actually, Austin and Houston – where a huge percentage of the population of Texas lives, are heavily Democratic, and Dallas to a degree, as well (although Ft. Worth is GoP stronghold). Houston has a lesbian mayor, remember, and Austin – well, Keep it Weird, you know!
I donated to this project! Very cool! I hope we can get a fraction of the traffic for our documentary about zombies and zombie culture in America! http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/213091?a=1095907
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Thats because you’re the only decent person there. I’ve been to Minot and can’t wait for it to flood again.
I can’t wait to see free energy technology released to the general public, seeing over 5000 patents for free energy technology exists in the patent office. I believe this museum will do the free energy movement a good deal of good. Awesome campaign!
Sorry to burst your bubble, but free energy is hocus. First Law of Thermodynamics drives the nail in that coffin.
P.S this museum project is neato! Wonderful work folks.
Tesla, a good campaigm
But I have a more revolutionary campaign
TF&IT Watches will be a top model of technological watches. Display with perfect color rendering and high pixel density. Made of quality materials.
Link: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/216627?a=1098958
Donate or extend the campaign further
Aaaaaaaand flop.
Alex, seriously, you’re using this to promote your own product that’s not even in the prototype stage?
Lame.
I really need your help guys, please take a look at our campaign! http://www.indiegogo.com/ruinsthemovie?a=878121
Love the last couple paragraphs in particular, Andrew. The most insightful words we’ve seen written on this subject to date. Thank you! :0) (Sent from my iPad, Tesla, near Seattle)
Contributions per capita would look very different. CA, NY, MA, and IL would barely be blips while CO, TX, and WA would be notable contributors. Stranger-still, the UK would probably look like a WA or TX.
The electoral map is also fairly useless when you consider that every one is some shade of purple, with most states right on the edge of either side.
I don’t know what to make of it, but it’s not an effect of political preference. Perhaps geek concentrations and/or their relative incomes. With raw data it would be possible to combine with outside data sources and potentially isolate the factors.
I’d like to see the list for countries in $/capita, too… Australia is the 4th highest contributor, but we only have ~22.5m people!
Did anyone notice the resemblance to the 2008 electoral map? http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/statemapredbluer1024.png
It’s not a complete 1-1 map, but it seems like democratic states tend to give more than republican.
Yep, because Texas is a HUGE liberal state…
More like a population map. Notice it’s “Total $ Contributed,” not per capita. With some exceptions, the more densely populated states tend to be bluer, so that may be what you’re picking up on. http://www.census.gov/population/www/cen2000/maps/files/map02.gif
I’m probably the only person who donated in North Dakota.
Tyler– You’re not! I’m in NoDak, too– Grand Forks, specifically. But then, I’m not a native here- I’m just here for school, so that may not mean as much.
“NoDak”
Somehow you managed to church up one of the Dakotas. Well done. Now stop it. It’s like the kid who calls his mom by her first name.
oh man, this is the best typing mistake ever
let’s go make ‘alot’ mean ‘very few’ too
Why ‘thanks men’? You realise women, comprising 52% of the world’s population, and almost the same percentage of engineering university placements where live, also exist. Right?
It’s a figure of speech. We know that the world consists of 52 percent women. Go burn your bra somewhere else.
It implies that you don’t, though. Go air your shitty arguing skills somewhere else.
(Inb4 white-knighting, nobody cares)
Man, patriarchal society don’t care for women. The standard is men, so ‘thanks men’ and shut up.
Oh, I wonder if you approach women with that attitude in real life or are you only brave enough to wave your balls around online? Go back to your cave, Neanderthall.
Most likely it was a translating error, whereby the standard term “men” was substituted for the more casual term “guys” despite the fact that in this instance the correct figure of speech should have been “thanks, guys.” To continue grumbling over feminist/anti-feminist sentiments that are not inherent in a two word sentence is ridiculous.
Finally, the first INTELLIGENT comment on this page! Thanks!
The dictionary defines ‘man’ (or men) to refer to either an adult human male, or a member of the human race, regardless of gender. The term is clearly being used in the latter role in this context. Get off your high horse.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/man
Thank you for representing your cause appropriately, rather than digging through an article to find, literally, 2 words that offend you for no reason to flip your shit about.
Thanks, man. ^_^
So pleased to have been apart of this!
A great way to donate and help towards making a cash flow solution for this great cause.
You do realize that “apart” means exactly the opposite than “a part”, right?
This is the first major campaign that brought the world’s attention to Indiegogo. But, it also highlighted the biggest upcoming problem that crowdfunding sites like this will have: spam. Other people who use crowdfunding sites like this see a successful campaign like this one and they start posting in the comments to draw some attention to their own campaign. Indiegogo has no mechanism to report or combat cross posted spam. They currently rely on visitors to their site to report such behavior (taking a reactive approach instead of a proactive one). Mark my words: in the future the spam problem on crowdfunding sites is going to get a whole lot worse. It will be hard to figure out who asked for the original donation when an army of spammers takes over and overruns your request.
How about making one for aids or cancer research, Inman?
He did. It was called “Bearlove Good. Cancer Bad.” Raised $220,024. Located here: http://www.indiegogo.com/bearlovegood
Already done. Google “Bearlove Good. Cancer Bad.” or just read one of the blog posts he wrote about it, like this one: http://theoatmeal.com/blog/fundraiser_update
A lot of organizations are fueling that research already. This is a unique campaign that likely wouldn’t get the attention from anyone what doesn’t care much for the history of scientific progress. Let’s not dilute the campaign with a push for things like cancer research (don’t get me wrong, I hold that research in that field is a worthy pursuit).
Would be freaky if some came from Antarctica.
There are people in Antarctica, why would it be freaky?
I would think on a per capita basis, Antarctica would be more likely to contribute, since it has the largest percentage population of people holding science PhDs.
Because they’re cold hearted??? Yeah, I don’t get it.
either way… antartica or not… loving the great worldwide support of an innovator / crazy person.
lol no…because there are science stations on Antarctica, so most of the people there are scientists :p
You don’t get it Brandon?
You people are weird.
THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF THE CONTINENT OF ANTARCTICA IS AT MOST HARDLY MORE THAN 5,000 PEOPLE.
Why do you people not get the joke? There are entire countries with millions of people that didn’t donate. It WOULD be funny to see Antarctica on there. Particularly since the majority of those who are in Antarctica are only there for a season.
It might have, but Antarctica isn’t a country, so it won’t appear anyways – it will appear as whoever’s base the person was in
yipee…one more thing that i read in wikpedia if we can get his manuscripts back…
Reminds me of a Ron Paul moneybomb!
Tasmania is apart of Australia… Nevertheless, awesome stuff!
Just a question: I see two EU countries in the top-5. How does the EU as a whole (27 member states) compare to the USA and Canada?
Well, strictly speaking, Greenland is part of Denmark, so it’s sort of included already
Oh, and also, YAY for the project! ^^
What about Bolivia? That gray hole in the middle of South America is an eyesore.
I think what this infographic really proves is that someone needs to go preach to people in Greenland about how awesome Nikola Tesla was.
greenland is part of denmark, that’s why it’s not counted, you moron
I’m so glad that you collected enough money to save that land. Nikola Tesla is so important person for Yugoslavian people. And for sure it was some Serb who give 35k$
Thanks men
It was actually Elton Musk of Tesla Motors
Err, do you mean Elon Musk?
How can The Christian Cafe raise the money we need to open our doors? On Indiegogo
google is responsible for serbia/montenegro map problem. just check demographics for any youtube video and i promise you wont find serbia anywhere.
in 2006 serbia and montenegro (one country) broke into two different countries with two different domains. i guess google people forgot to update their demographic algorithms…
What is the amount needed for a country to be shown as a contributor? Check data for Serbia and Croatia.
Something is wrong on contribution map, there are many donations from Serbia and it is not shown. I personally donate some money. Please check.
me also, and im sure many others from Serbia donated.
Yes, many people from Serbia donated.
Lol I totally broke your chain
And none from Lithuania? I’ll get on to fix that.
However about Serbia, when I zoomed the map enough, I saw that only Albania from all Balkan countries is missing – all others are green.