Kickstarter

That was a very close horse race, no two ways about it. I'm still a little beside myself. In the last 72 hours we doubled our funds and doubled the number of backers on the project. I'm really excited that so many of you will be along for the journey throughout the next year.

I'll be sending a thank you note to each of you in the coming days, but know that I am sincerely grateful for everything you've contributed to make this happen.

Special thanks to members of the team that have been working behind the scenes to make this fundraiser possible: Michelle Larson, Rich Vial, Robert Hall, Kristal Williams, Jonathan Canlas, Elaine McMillion and many others who have put up with my emails, texts, and phone calls for ideas. And again, to each of you. Thank you so much!

Have a lovely holiday and then lets get to work!

Best

Nathaniel

Would you believe me if I told you we were close? Really close? 

We are! I just wanted to keep you posted as we head into the final stretch. It's going to be a photo finish, I can tell. There's no guarantee however. Just two weeks ago a project on kickstarter missed their goal by $28. It was all over the tech news - and was a good reminder of the "all or nothing" stakes when using kickstarter to raise funds. 

As of this writing, we are 86% funded with 3 hours to go. 

Thanks to each of you for your generous contributions and for your support of this project. We're almost there! 

Nathaniel

A few weeks ago, the 21st still felt as though it was an eternity away, and yet here it is upon us!

As you know, at 11:59 pm EST tonight (8:59 pm PST), Kickstarter will close this project to pledging. If we have not met our goal, no money will change hands and our team will trying to figure out next steps to make this project a reality. If we have met our goal, we will immediately begin to assess next steps to begin filming in early 2013, and we'll send out some of the rewards that are already available. Let us hope it's the latter option!

So many people have supported us through pledging, via social media and email, and even making phone calls. From me and from the entire team working behind the scenes, THANK YOU SO MUCH! We really can't do this without you. 

I'm still hopeful some of our outreach will prove fruitful in the last few hours, as we have several organizations and families thinking about the larger reward options (a documentary about a loved one or about their organization/business), which would put us over the top. But I'm not one to hold my breath, so we're operating under the assumption that these won't occur. 

Ways you can still help spread the word: 

• If you use twitter, you can Tweet about the project with this link http://kck.st/Tqcuhe, and say something like: So close - Only xx hours left for this interactive documentary about La'ie and its elderly residents http://kck.st/Tqcuhe
• You can share the same link via email or on facebook, too. http://kck.st/Tqcuhe 

I think we can all agree that these types of projects seem pretty insignificant in the face of what happened in Connecticut, on Friday. Our family took the weekend and unplugged from the web and social media, to spend time with each other. We made cookies. We played games. We read stories. We hugged each-other a little longer than usual, and with a little more heart.

Here it is, Monday morning, and I've plugged back in - somewhat begrudgingly - and was pleased to see support still coming in for the project. It truly lifted my spirits on this rainy start to what promises to be a stressful week.

I have two big updates that came in this weekend:

Our kickstarter fundraiser now has a fiscal sponsor! What this means, is that your pledge is tax deductible as a registered 501(c)3 has extended their status to our fundraising efforts. When the project is successfully funded on Friday (can you feel my optimism!) we will begin the process of issuing individual receipts of donation, should this prove useful in your accounting adventures for 2012.

If you have excess funds that are just lying around, unused (as we all do, amirite?), you might find our project worthy of the contribution. It's either us or Uncle Sam :)

Our second update was more of a shout out from a well regarded film festival I have really admired over the years. They're based in Sheffield, and Oxford England, and make up a film festival  called DocFest. They had this to say about our Kupuna project:  

"We're very much into our interactive docs here in Doc/Fest Towers, and [Kupuna] uses the form excellently to keep the memory of disappearing cultures and a slower pace of life alive. This is lovely in form and content."

This was a really wonderful boost to the confidence of what we're doing. This festival is a top-tier festival for documentary film, meaning it's one of the best in the world (for sure in the top 15 on my list), and they took time to recognize what we are trying to do in La'ie. Hooray!

It's a busy time of year, and I appreciate what each of you has done for this project. If you know anyone at all who you think would be interested in being involved in what we're doing, please send them our way.

We're 41 % funded and have only 4 days left to reach our goal or kickstarter sends us packing.

Thank you for caring, thank you for sharing, and thank you for helping see this project through successfully on Friday!

Best
Nathaniel