Great news! We’ve hit our $30K fundraising goal for our Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign!

A huge thank you goes out to everyone for being part of this project and for making Finding Traction happen. December 15th was the final day of the campaign, and we are proud to announce that we surpassed our $30,000 goal to successfully raise $31,072 through 511 contributions and 493 individual donations (many of our fans even donated twice!)

It was amazing to see how everyone came together through this effort and the heart and soul that poured into the project. Here are a few highlights from the campaign:

We received formal support and endorsement from some big players in the running world, including Ultra Running Magazine and iRunFar.com.

Race directors from both TransRockies and the Bridger Ridge Run donated significant entries to us to show their support of the film and help us increase donations.

Bolton Valley Resort (Bolton VT), Free Range Massage (Bozeman MT), Muscles Not Motors (Montpelier VT) and Cactus Records (Bozeman MT) donated prizes to encourage our FB fans to donate.

The North Face, Northern Lights Trading Co., Bozeman Running Co., Boulder Running Co., San Francisco Running Co. and Universal Productions in the UK featured us in their newsletters or on their websites and social media pages.

Sports Basement Presidio in San Francisco rallied runners, race directors and Bay area community members in support of the project and hosted our very first screening tour.

The Bozeman Running Co. and the Big Sky Wind Drinkers are currently planning a wine and cheese fundraiser for us in Bozeman MT on January 17th to support the making of the film.

We did interviews with a number of media outlets and were featured in Trail Runner Magazine’s Digital Edition, Indiegogo’s Blog, Trail Runner Nation’s podcast, and TrailAndUltraRunning.com’s website.

Many other organizations including Run Vermont, Girls on the Run, Molte Yoga Retreats and countless bloggers, magazines, and individuals also wrote about us and generated a great buzz about the film.

The finished film was invited to submit to festivals in diverse locations across the world including Pennington, South Africa; Vancouver, Canada; and Tokyo, Japan.

Festival directors in ID, OR, CA, NC and WA have already asked us to submit the film.

Thank you to each and every one of our fans and friends for playing an instrumental role in helping us hit our goal to finish the film. Stay tuned for the film’s release in summer 2013!

Cheers,
Jaime and the Finding Traction Team

The North Face store in San Francisco’s Union Square boasts a beautiful display that showcases their talented athletes in action. We found a familiar face on the wall!

Read more about Nikki and her TNF teammates here.

Last Friday night we recorded an awesome podcast with our friends Don Freeman and Jimmy Dean of Trail Runner Nation. We’re big fans of the interaction between WNYC Radiolab hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, and Don and Jimmy gave them a run for their money. They’re articulate, funny and know how to tell a good story and keep the dialogue moving. We’re psyched for the upcoming podcast. Watch for it this week!

In the meantime, check out our mobile recording studio set up in Sports Basement Presidio’s meeting room! Thanks, SBP, for making this upcoming Trail Runner Nation podcast possible!

After we booked our trip to San Francisco, we were delighted to discover that Indiegogo’s headquarters are in town!

Indiegogo is an awesome crowd funding platform where we’ve been able to create a fundraising campaign to tell our story and get the word out about Finding Traction.

The Indiegogo staff has been super supportive of our project and invited us to come visit them at their offices during our trip. Nikki and Jaime met with several of their campaign managers who specialize in sports and film projects (kudos to David, Steve and Andrew!). We asked them to share their advice on outreach and promotion and together we brainstormed a number of new ideas to implement during our last two weeks of the campaign.

Here are their top 3 tips for crafting a successful crowd funding campaign:

• Create a sense of community. Reach out to current contributors. These folks (i.e. those of you who are reading this blog post!) are our biggest fans. Think creatively on ways to involve fans and supporters in shaping the direction of the project and providing feedback. Embarking on the filmmaking process together is way more fun, and very rewarding. Films in particular should cultivate conversation and bring diverse stakeholders from the community together to share passions and ideas. This is why we do what we do!

• Think of outreach like a spiderweb. Each strand should extend into many others. Involve as many individuals, bloggers, organizations, clubs, media outlets, and businesses as you can and encourage everyone to share the project with those they know. Together we have a great impact and can really spread the word.

• Create new perks and gifts for the campaign. This is where the fun begins! The Finding Traction team is working on that now, so stay tuned for upcoming announcements of new prizes that we’re offering in exchange for your support.