Scoot Kingsley Clark who is the lead developer of the Pods Development Framework has successfully acquired the funds necessary to complete development work for Pods 2.0 along with the community website. After launching his project on Kickstarter.com, he managed to get the $1,500.00 goal necessary within 24 hours. However, the project has been so successful at getting pledges, he is nearly 200% or $2,000.00 above the original goal with 7 days left in the pledging period. With regards to what Scott plans on doing with the extra cash, this is what he says under the FAQ section of the project page:
All additional money raised goes towards the Pods Foundation to help fund future development, travel for WordCamps and presentations, and hosting costs. So really, 2.0 is now funded – BUT you can still fund the foundation and everything it stands for.
You might be wondering what he means by Pods Foundation. When I had a chance to speak with Scott the other day, he told me that the purpose of the foundation as well as how it’s structured is very similar to the WordPress foundation. I’m pretty sure this is the first WordPress plugin to have it’s own Non Profit foundation attached to it unless you know of another one? Because of the foundation, you can be assured that the money donated will go towards improvement of the plugin and accompanying community website.
Congratulations goes out to Scott as well as his community of users. I have yet to see any other plugin or theme developers use Kickstarter in such a way. Do you think this was a unique opportunity for something like the Pods plugin or could other plugin authors leverage Kickstarter successfully to fund development of their projects?
A friend is also using Kickstarter to raise funds and I’m glad to say she has also managed to exceed her target amount via the website, so its very encouraging to read another success story – esp. a WordPress related one – as it will certainly raise awareness and hopefully it will inspire other plugin developers to try this route too instead of e.g. going commercial.
The Pods plugin does have a very strong community following, so am not sure if that was a major factor in achieving its target and more, as it was able to propagate the news quickly.
Perhaps upcoming developers without such a strong community backing can contact Jeff in the future to help raise their profile if they decide to go down the Kickstarter route :)