We first wrote about crowdfunding in January 2015, when we told you about an Experiment.com campaign launched by Andor Kiss, supervisor of Miami University’s Center for Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics.

As Associate Provost for Research Jim Oris mentioned in a post offering his perspective on FY2015 extramural funding, Kiss’s success with crowdfunding helped inspire the development of a crowdfunding platform specifically designed to engage alumni, family, and friends of Miami University.

Together with University Advancement, we are pleased to announce that that platform — called HawksNest — is now operational.

Through HawksNest, alumni, family, and friends can directly support the research, scholarship, and service projects of Miami University students, faculty, and staff.

This is how HawksNest works.

• Any Miami University student, faculty, or staff member may complete an online application to have a project considered for funding.
• An internal review team assesses applications and posts approved projects on HawksNest for a maximum of 45 days.
• Potential donors visit the site to learn about and pledge funds to approved projects.
• Once a funding goal has been met, the project can begin!
• Project managers use the site to keep donors up-to-date with information on the project’s progress.

We need projects from Miami faculty, staff, and students!

We have a website. We have policies and procedures. But to launch the site officially, we need student-centered projects for donors to fund! We encourage Miami faculty, staff, and students with great ideas that could be implemented for under $6000 to create a HawksNest account and submit the project for review today.

Want to know more before you commit?

Check out our FAQs and project review criteria. And — since crowdfunding is successful only when project managers actively promote their projects — also be sure to check out these tips for using social media to promote your campaign.

Ready to get started? Visit HawksNest.MiamiOH.edu now.

Red-tailed hawk photo by Rick Bohn of U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Moutain-Prairie via Flickr, used under Creative Commons license.