communications/

Slogans / Catchphrases / Elevator Speeches

Ideas with explanations of how to present parts of the system as briefly as possible:

Primary Slogan

Crowdmatching for public goods

Commentary: The primary slogan captures the ideas of matching, bringing everyone together, cooperation, and the scope of projects we’re focused on. Although it doesn’t specify FLO, that’s implied with public goods. The co-op angle is covered by our name. The only real missing element is sustainability / long-term support.

Alternate slogans/catch-phrases

  • Funding by the people, for the people

Description

A summary paragraph for things like applying for a booth at a conference or for press etc:

Snowdrift.coop funds public goods through sustainable crowdmatching. “Public goods” means resources that everyone can share and for which no one has any exclusive rights. So that can include software, art, research, journalism, educational resources… pretty much anything shareable under free/libre/open terms. “Crowdmatching” is an alternative to all-or-nothing thresholds where patrons agree to donate more when others join them. So when the crowd starts out small, patrons don’t give their whole budget. The matching is an invitation to others. The more we work together, the more we are all willing to do toward our shared goals. And the platform itself will run as a cooperative with membership open to anyone who supports it.

Simple overview statements

In an elevator speech, our key take-aways are:

  • Public goods, like public domain, where nobody has exclusive control and everyone can share
  • Developers/authors need sustainable, livable salaries
  • Most funding methods don’t work for public goods
  • Paywalls and ads are dominant models for creative work, and both rely on exclusive control
  • Crowdmatching is designed specifically for this dilemma
  • Crowdmatching is giving more of your budget the more others agree to help
  • Co-op values

Old slogans

Our slogan evolved over time:

  • “Working together to clear our obstacles”
  • “Working together to clear the path to a free/libre/open world”
  • “Clearing the path to a free/libre/open world”
  • “Free the commons”
  • finally “Crowdmatching for public goods”

Useful short sentences

  • “I’ll donate more if more people will join me.”

  • Public broadcasting commonly uses matching donations and “sustaining member” pledges… We combine those into one approach where everyone matches everyone else — all specifically tailored for FLO projects.

Comparison to other sites

We combine sustainable patronage with a mutual-assurance contract. No other system does that.

  • Like Patreon, we help facilitate community of patrons around creative projects
    • Unlike Patreon, we don’t emphasize paywalls of exclusive content, we’re focused on how to fund things without any paywalls or ads or compromises
  • Like Kickstarter, we provide assurance that you don’t go it alone
  • Also like Kickstarter, we serve as a test of community support
    • But instead of artificial all-or-nothing / make-or-break, we’re flexible
  • Like Flattr, we do regular microdonations (with a system-wide budget, but it’s not fixed spend-all and we hope people will increase budgets as they see the value, so it’s not a strict zero-sum game like Flattr is)
  • Like Liberapay, we work to give people a reliable living and don’t take a cut of the donations
  • Like (now-defunct) PledgeBank (and like Wikimedia’s small-donor focus), we care about the number of participants, not just the amount of money
  • We don’t tie funding to exact work like bounty sites. Instead, ongoing funding gives patrons a way to hold projects accountable for progress over time. Projects can also connect requests with patronage to be sure to honor the requests of the patrons.
  • We focus on exclusively FLO projects
    • Most sites fund proprietary projects with only a few software-focused exceptions like Bountysource

For game-theory wonks

  1. The prisoner’s dilemma encourages deviation even though everyone would be better off cooperating.
  2. The snowdrift dilemma changes the rules a bit and we get more likely cooperation but can fall into a waiting game.1
  3. Crowdmatching tweaks the game to maximize the payoff and minimize the risk when choosing to cooperate
    • Two solutions to dilemmas: iteration and assurance contract — we use both at once.

For projects to say to supporters

See our separate suggestions for projects to use on their external pages.


  1. Note that snowdrift brings up two possible metaphors: (A) the obstacle to cooperatively clear as in the snowdrift dilemma or (B) how microdonations add up like snowflakes adding up to large snowdrifts. We should avoid the latter interpretation so we don’t get a screwy mixed-metaphor.