The power of belief: Crowdfunding OG Kickstarter reaches tomorrows communities

For 17 years, Kickstarter has empowered creators and their backers to produce innovative, groundbreaking work.In 2025, Kickstarter had its biggest, most successful campaign ever: the eufyMake E1, the first personal 3D-texture UV printer.The makers of the E1 raised an eye-popping $46,762,258 from 7,822 backers.

And that’s just one of the many campaigns that broke records last year. Both literary publishing and comics had door-busting campaigns.Ali Hazelwood and Adriana Herrera’s “After the End: A Dystopian Romance Collection” that featured “eight original stories exploring love after the end of the world” brought in over $1 million, and “The Transformers: Compendium Set” raised $4.6 million.Ali Hazelwood, one of the creators behind “After the End,” explained their success, saying, “people are hungry for projects that are powered by creatives, projects that are diverse, and above all projects in which authors haven’t had to compromise their creative vision!”“It’s so important that everyone feels like they can go wild,” she says, and “run with their ideas and creativity, and see where they take them.

That’s something traditional publishing often can’t afford to let authors do, but with a project like ours, it’s a whole different ball game.”The power behind Kickstarter is its community.The people who become backers on Kickstarter are a highly engaged, collaborative group who complete the ecosystem of creators whose collective optimism brings new ideas to life.Instead of traditional passive consumption, this community is built on patronage and direct market validation.

Data from Kickstarter shows that over 24 million individuals have backed at least one project on the platform.A significant driver of this funding engine is its strong retention rate, often referred to as the repeat factor, given that approximately 33% of the community consists of returning backers. On average, these dedicated users support between three and ...