Top-3 Touching Projects on Boomstarter
1. Bionic prosthetic arm MAXBIONIC
Finished in July 2016
267 backers
1 583 400 RUB collected (~$23 700)
In 2013 Max Lyasko lost his hand in an accident. Having done some research, he found out that an arm prosthesis would cost him $25 000 — $250 000, a sum barely anyone could afford. Being an engineer, he decided to design his own arm and make it ten times cheaper. That’s what Max says in one of his interviews:
“We turned to crowdfunding unexpectedly, when we won Boomstarter social projects contest. We wanted to raise 1,5 mln (~$23 000) rubles, which seemed to be an enormous sum of money, considering we made a slapdash presentation video. We made a mistake during the campaign — we said we would pay for the delivery of the awards. Sometimes the delivery fee exceeded the donation. We called people, explained the situation — most of them refused the gift.”
2. Only Russian literature is better than football!
Ongoing
102 backers
119 900 RUB (~$1 800)
Deaf-blind Mikhail, Vlad, Tatiana and many others are a part of charity fund CGC — “Creative group “Circle.” All together they work in a сeramic workshop and earn a living. They also plan to run a hotel business, to give shelter to everyone regardless of their special needs.
To give life to all their ideas, they needed to raise money and start selling their products. The idea they had was held back-to-back with the World Cup — they decided to sell magnets depicting famous Russian writers as football players. The campaign is still live and open for support. Just look how beautiful thing they make are!
3. Reindeer for a herder Vitya Hoody
Finished in October 2015
283 backers
285 650 RUB (~$4 300)
In 2014 there was an unprecedentedly hard spring for Yamal region. According to some data, up to 100 thousand reindeers have died of starvation. The regions’ officials suppose that it’ll take 10–15 years to recover the herd. Vitya Hoody has lost all the mount deer, which means he was no longer able to provide for his family or get some firewood.
A film crew from Saint-Petersburg came across Vitya and had a journey across Yamal with him. They started a crowdfunding campaign on Boomstarter to buy him new deer. The story resonated in the news and social media, which helped the herder to raise funds and start from the very beginning.
