Tag Archives: scifund

Open Notebook

#Scifund money update

1 Comment

I am incredibly sorry that this has taken so long. A few weeks ago I turned in the form needed to get myself an expense account. Apparently there were some important numbers missing that I didn’t know were necessary. Right now the account is pending that information. Hopefully you and I don’t have to wait much longer.

The good news is that UNM has given me no problems with accepting the money. I’ve heard several stories about other #Scifunders having issues getting the money through their universities, and I’m pleased that I’ve had no issues so far. I’ll write a short summary post about the process of getting the money donated once it completely goes through the system and I have a spending account.

Then in the interest of transparency and open science I’ll be telling you exactly what I’m purchasing, when I purchase it so you know exactly where your money is going. My first purchase will be for shipping supplies, paper, and printing costs (to make all your thank you cards!). Then I’ll be buying some water for the yeast experiments and hopefully for some follow up deuterium exchange experiments.

Open Notebook

#SciFund money update

1 Comment

I received a form from the UNM foundation before I went to DC and I need to get it signed. I’ll be running around campus tomorrow to get it done and then once that is done I’ll be waiting for notification of how to use the UNM Banner system to start spending.

First thing to do: get thank you cards designed and printed and mailed! Then I’ll likely buy some water once I run out of supplies here. But that won’t be for a couple of weeks I think (once the money clears).

Open Notebook

Depositing the #SciFund money with UNM

Leave a comment

I received my check from Rockethub and am now in the process of getting a Banner account through UNM. Despite all the horror stories I’ve heard from other #scifunders, UNM actually wants the money and are making it super easy (thus far!).

I had Rockethub make the check out to UNM Foundation, which handles all gifts and donations. They gave me a form to fill out and get signed by some UNM administration including the Physics department chair and some other people that I have no idea what they do.

Right now I’m in this phase, but according to my sources once I get the signatures required I just give it back to the UNM Foundation and they set up the banner account. Then I get to spend the money!

I’ll be updating my progress on the deposition as well as letting everyone know what the money is going to be spent on as it’s spent! Exciting stuff.

Open Notebook

5k for science (and other fundraising endeavors)

Leave a comment

With all the hoopla for crowdfunding science, #SciFund and petridish.org (among others) I started wondering, “How come there was no traditional form of raising money for science?” And by traditional I don’t mean PI’s applying for grants. I look at crowdfunding for science more as like a charity type of situation. So why hasn’t there been any traditional type of fundraising for science?

Maybe someone has done this, but I haven’t heard of such a venture so I’m proposing a 5k for science. And for those who want to have a ton of fun, what about a pub crawl for science!

The idea would be simple, set up an event. Get a ton of people to register for the event and charge a $10-20 admission fee. Then let them run/drink themselves silly. The money would go directly towards labs for research. On the research end, graduate students could write microgrants that would be awarded with the money from the 5k (for instance).

Alternatively, those wishing to be funded via the 5k could submit posters to the 5k for display along the trail. The money would be evenly distributed among those posters’ “presenters” (since no one would actually be there alongside the poster).

If crowdfunding can work for science, than why can’t this?

This idea originally sprung up because I was thinking about how to engage the local commuinity (ABQ in my case) and entice them to contribute directly to research in their own backyard. A crowdfunding site dedicated to research at UNM was one avenue, but I wanted something that allowed students and researchers to interact directly with the community. Thus the idea of a 5k popped up. A pub crawl would probably be more “profitable”. And some kind of science day at a local museum would be more fitting (where ticket sales would be donated to researchers participating in the event). It might even be worth it for scientists to host their own educational opportunities where visitors would provide a donation for the researcher’s time. This would be most fun for those who do field work (ecologists, anthropologists, some biologists, and some very exciting physicists).

Anyway, the ideas are very rough, but could provide some interesting outside the box funding options for labs in the same mold that crowdfunding has provided.

If you have heard of such endeavors, please share your stories in the comments!

Open Notebook

Final tally and next steps

Leave a comment

The #SciFund Challenge Round 2 is now complete (mostly as there are a couple late starting projects that will be completing soon). And from what I’ve heard it’s been a smashing success. Together as a group we’ve raised over $100,000 and out of 75 projects 33 were fully funded (or exceeded their goal), and my project “The Effect of Water on Life” was one of them!

In total I managed to raise $2125! Of which I will get about $1950 of after Rockethub subtracts their fees.

I’ll be doing a bit of notebooking on the process of getting the money and how UNM handled it. From what I’ve heard from other people, this is a complication in the process. UNM at first was very helpful in getting me started, and I expected to put the money in through the UNM Foundation (their charity receiving arm) which would create an account for me. Now I’m verifying that this is what I actually need to do. I’ll post more later.

In the mean time I’ll be offering my public thanks to the rest of the people who contributed and like I said before I’ll be getting the rewards going when I return from NY and if you’re in line for one you’ll be getting it (hopefully) by the end of the month.

Again, thank you to everyone! Thanks to Jai and Jarrett of the #SciFund Challenge for organizing this amazing program. Thanks to all the participants of #SciFund for the community and support and help. Even though a lot of you aren’t open about your research, the experience was very open science. Thanks to all my open science friends for sharing the message about #SciFund and my project in particular. And especially thanks to the 38 contributors of my project!

I couldn’t have done any of this without any of you!

Open Notebook

We’ve done it! $2000 for open science! http://rkthb.co/7531

Leave a comment

I’m truly humbled by the amount of people who have come out to support my project. I am eternally grateful. Honestly, I never imagined that I would hit $2000 but we banded together and got it done.

There is still time though and excess funds would be used to buy even more water (especially since a few new experiment ideas would cost about $400 just for one day!).

If you are in line for a graphic design reward, I’ll get those to you by the end of June. After all, I need to design them!

In the coming days I’ll have posts about my experience with #scifund, making my proposal, and the overall success of scifund along with whatever random thoughts pop into my head.

Thanks everyone for your efforts and showing that the public cares about science and would directly want to support it. I love you all!

Open Notebook

Is crowdfunding the future of science funding?

Leave a comment

I wrote an article for the Science Exchange Blog about this very topic. So head on over there and check it out.

In a few days I’ll have a follow up post about this topic and my personal experience with the #SciFund Challenge. In the meantime, I have 3 days of the competition left so if you haven’t had the opportunity, check out my proposal and learn about the interesting experiments I carry out in this very notebook. And if you are feeling a little generous, feel free to contribute whatever you want. Every little bit helps!