Kickstarter has announced Drip — a Patreon-like crowdfunding platform for ongoing creator support.

From the press release:

In recent years, we’ve seen the growing validation of subscriptions for serial online content creators — podcasters, YouTubers, bloggers — using tools like Flattr, Patreon, and Steady. It’s been great to see organizations build tools like these — the world is far from having too many tools for creators. But there remain large groups of artists and creators who don’t see subscriptions as fitting their creative practices. Our goal with the new Drip is to change that.

A key mandate for the design of Drip has been creator independence. The work and relationships that creators build online should belong to them. They shouldn’t feel stuck to a platform because those things aren’t easy to move. With that in mind, creators will be able to export their data and content, and we’ll even help creators securely transfer subscription and payments information to other subscription platforms. We believe creator independence means not being locked into a platform by design.

Launching a Drip is simple. Describe what you do. Think about what you can offer subscribers: things like access to your work, latest releases, IRL experiences, or something as simple as behind-the-scenes access and updates on your works-in-progress. Human-to-human stuff. Fans, friends, and new audiences can now subscribe to support your work on an ongoing basis — not just project-to-project.

Every Drip begins with a founding membership period to help creators build momentum. The founding membership period is a way for creators to entice their fans, friends, and new audiences to jump in and build up their base of support. (This is not all-or-nothing like Kickstarter, but it does build on our experience that a strong call to action is essential.) Creators can offer their founding members special rewards or status for jumping in early. We know creators will be really creative with how they think of founding memberships, and we’re excited to see how it’s put to use.

From The Verge:

Drip hopes to differentiate itself with its “founding member” approach. The other big difference is that Drip also aims to be more creator friendly, allowing creators to easily port subscribers to other crowdfunding platforms with this model. Focusing on building a product that can easily be transferred to a competitor may seem like an odd choice, but Kickstarter has a unique set of incentives. In 2015, it reincorporated a Public Benefit Corporation, or PBC. It vowed to never go public or sell the company, and it committed to putting the well-being of creators and employees above traditional metrics like revenue growth or profitability.

What you need to know…

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