Jobs, Taxes, Land, Money, Data, Funding
TL;DR: This somewhat lengthy post describes 2 brand new crowdfunding services in development by LOVELAND Technologies, both of which are at the beta testing stage. The first is recurring monthly crowd payments with LoveTax and the second is map-based fundraising with Living In The Map (note you must be logged in via Facebook or LOVELAND to see the feature). We would love feedback and tire-kicking on these services as we refine and prepare to roll them out and customer service-ize them. Contact me at jerry@makeloveland.com or 908-343-1981 if you want to connect directly. Thanks!
PS LOVELAND Technologies needs funds to get to the next level, and we are now for the first time officially open for investment. If you’d like to monetarily support this work for financial and/or spiritual equity, please get in touch. ❤
—————
Mappy! A sketch of inchy’s in-development brother by John Leonard:
Some exciting new developments afoot at LOVELAND Technologies. What kinds of developments? Well, I’m glad you asked.
Firstly, Larry’s got a couple new crowdfunding services running. The super brand new one is called LoveTax which you can check out at lovetax.us.
In a nutshell, LoveTax is the easiest conceivable way to receive or make regular monthly payments of any size for any thing. If you have or setup a free PayPal account you can create a tax for anything you’d like in seconds and begin receiving funds directly. If you see a tax you want to support, just type in how much you want to pay monthly and your credit card will be charged on the 15th of every month until you choose to pause or stop payments.
Our first tax dollar! Actually, I paid it. Not sure that counts. :-)
This idea was inspired by 2 things: our experience of crowdfunding as an incredibly powerful but almost inherently unsustainable act (everything’s a big rush to hit the goal, but then where does the next check come from?), and the national conversation about needing to cut government taxing and spending while not wanting to cut the funding for specific programs. You mix them both in a bowl, leave them out in the LOVELAND sun for a few weeks, and you get the notion of consistent crowdfunding streams, or, if you will, voluntary monthly taxes paid to the things you love, whether it’s an artist, a charity, a cat, or anything in between (you know what I’m saying).
Heck, even rent is fair game *wink wink :-P*:
You’re able to see the size of the monthly stream coming into a tax just like you can see the number of backers and total raised on most crowdfunding sites, and encourage other people to grow the stream in a community of tax payers. Hopefully a system like this can help put some predictability and sustainability into the crowdfunding game. We’ll see!
LoveTax is truly brand new (just put it on Facebook and Twitter tonight) and even more than wanting to hear what you think, we need to hear what you think. If you want to try it out either by creating a tax or putting a few bucks into something, that would be rad and most helpful. If you like the idea but need something more before you use it wholeheartedly or present it to your organization, please let us know and we’ll work with you to hook it up.
OK! The other new thing. As you may know, LOVELAND’s been scaling its mapping and payment systems up from inches and microhoods to city size with Living In The Map: Detroit. The goal here is a beautiful fusion of clear, explorable, city and neighborhood data with ways for people to interact with it. Think sort of real life SimCity.
Right now we have parcel and ownership data for the entire city, which is awesome. Granted the data is a few years old, but it’s still incredibly useful, and Larry’s crafted the system to drive like a dream. We’re in meetings with different city groups pretty much weekly trying to get the permission needed to share the most up to date information possible, not just about land, but as much as we can. It seems to be going well, so keep your fingers crossed that happens soon, and if there are Detroit data strings on your desk, please pull them for us.
Now the real new thing here is that our crowdfunding system has just been fully integrated into the map. Once you’re signed in with your LOVELAND account or Facebook Connect you’ll see some options when you’re at neighborhood or parcel level, including “Fund a project”. Say you head to the Imagination Station on the map (link) and click that button, this form will pop up where you can create your fundraiser by popping in your PayPal email address and letting people know what’s up:
Click “Continue” and BAM! Up a notch, in payable crowdfunding form:
Again, it’s all version 1 and we haven’t rolled this out hard and encouraged people to make use of it yet, but we’re not far from that at all, and if I do say so, this is amazing. We’re also working on re-crafting the language of the site for simpler, higher impact so that, for example, fundraisers become Jobs, which is really what they are: when people contribute funds to something it’s because someone is doing a job, whether it’s feeding the homeless, building a house, constructing an art work, throwing an event, or providing whatever service.
Ah, (self-selected) jobs and (welcomed) taxes.
What’s going to take us to the next level now is a source of funding so we can make some modest staff increases (reliable customer service and community management, for example, is an absolute must), take a deep breath, and, really, afford to focus like a laser beam without worrying about where rent money is coming from so we can turn this into a real business.
For more than a month we’ve been meeting with a potential investor who approached us and is showing very strong interest, but lord knows nothing in this life is certain. Sometimes I have a hard time tearing myself away from work and planning to really sell what we’re building. Outside of fundraising for other projects, we haven’t really opened ourselves up for investment, but now it’s time to.
So, if you’re of the constitution, consider LOVELAND Technologies open for investment. This is all too promising to go overly DIY with any longer. Don’t you think?
RSS
Archive
Mobile
