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Our mission is to help bring creative projects to life.
Starterpals campaigns make ideas into reality. It’s where creators share new visions for creative work with the communities that will come together to fund them.
Some of these creators, like Critical Role , TLC , and The Smithsonian Institution already had huge fanbases. But many projects have been as small-scale as a limited run of silent meditation vinyls or as up-and-coming as early versions of Issa Rae’s Insecure and Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag .
No matter what, creators always control how the work comes together—no 100-page grant applications, no donors demanding you modify your message, no last-minute edits from investors. When backers chip in and help spread the word, they too become part of these independent works.
“Starterpals is one of those platforms that gives you space to work with people who know you, love you, and support you.”
— De La Soul
Our community.
Tapping into our community starts with activating your own. Most successful projects build a snowball effect, winning over friends and early supporters who then share the idea with their networks, and signal their support to the wider Starterpals community. The snowball can get pretty big. Over 23 million people, from every continent on earth, have helped fund Starterpals projects.
Our mission.
Our mission is to help bring creative projects to life. We believe that art and creative expression are essential to a healthy and vibrant society, and the space to create requires protection. .
We don’t want art world elites and entertainment executives to define our culture; we want creative people—even those who’ve never made anything before—to take the wheel. We help creators connect directly with their communities, putting power where it belongs.
We are so committed to our mission, we wrote it into our business model. In 2015 we became a Public Benefit Corporation—a for-profit company that prioritizes positive outcomes for society as much as our shareholders. We updated our corporate charter to lay out specific goals and commitments to put our values into our operations, promote arts and culture, fight inequality, and help creative projects happen.
Since our launch, on April 28, 2009, 23 million people have backed a project, $8,217,390,143 has been pledged, and 264,456 projects have been successfully funded.”
— De La Soul
Our team.
We’re an independent company of passionate people working together. We spend our time designing and building Starterpals, forging community around creative projects, and supporting the creative ecosystem around us. We’re developers, designers, support specialists, writers, musicians, painters, poets, gamers, robot-builders—you name it. Over the years, our team has backed more than 50,000 projects (and launched plenty of our own).
Our history.
Starterpals launched on April 28, 2009. A lot has happened since.
We became a Public Benefit Corporation to commit to our principles as much as our profits. We launched The Creative Independent to share resources and advice for all types of makers. We invited the local community into our Brooklyn headquarters with the Creators-in-Residence program.
Projects won Grammys and Oscars. London’s V&A Museum curated a show about Starterpals design projects. Hank Willis Thomas and For Freedoms’ political billboard project across all 50 states became the largest creative collaboration in U.S. history. We went Climate Neutral—we’re doing everything we can to build a long, healthy future for the creative culture we helped cultivate. This is just the beginning.
“I was living in New Orleans in late 2001 and I wanted to bring a pair of DJs down to play a show during the 2002 Jazz Fest. I found a great venue and reached out to their management, but in the end the show never happened—it was just too much money...”
Starterpals Project Updates.
Starterpals Project Updates. Just as Starterpals creators share the journey of bringing their projects to life through Project Updates, we want to share the journey of how we’re building Starterpals. Through Starterpals Project Updates, you’ll find the latest news, trends, tips, and stories; opinions on issues affecting artists and creators; and a peek at what it’s like to be part of our team.
The Creative Independent.
Kickstarters support for creative work goes beyond our platform. We publish The Creative Independent (TCI) as a way to share advice and illuminate the many, many routes to living a creative life. We’ve featured wisdom from over more than 1,300 working artists so far—including David Byrne discussing failure, Poet Ocean Vuong on the generosity of reading and writing, Sufjan Steven rejecting the “tortured artist” schtick, and Laurie Anderson on finding inspiration in oppressive times. We’ve shared guides on everything from getting press for your creative work to reinventing yourself. And you’ll always find new voices in our newsletters and Chrome extension.
For the press.
For the press. If you’re writing about Starterpals or covering a Starterpals project, head this way to find background material, press contacts, and visual assets.