Author: Colleen Michele Jones
Publisher: Florida Times-Union
Date: May 23, 2014
The figures that local economist Chris Markl used in his study of crowdfunding dollars at this year’s One Spark were “preliminary,” the festival’s co-founder Elton Rivas said in a statement posted on the organization’s website Thursday.
The final results of the crowdfunding awards distributed to 2014 creators, as verified by an outside auditing firm, were released by One Spark Thursday: ” We invite you to view the actual results where you’ll find discrepancies with the data in the report mentioned,” Rivas wrote in a blog entry outlining his response to Markl’s survey.
Markl, himself a participant in this year’s arts and innovation festival, issued what he called his “One Spark Impact” study earlier this week to “measure One Spark’s impact as a crowdfunding tool.” The former Florida State College at Jacksonville economics professor and entrepreneur compared the crowdfunding goals of the 600-plus creators, as posted on the One Spark website, with the exit poll results for total crowdfunding each project received. That included public voting, individual contributions and prize money. Read more here.
