Kickstarter is not an investment

In case you haven't heard of it, there's this great site called Kickstarter. If you have an idea for a documentary, video game, or other product you're trying to get off the ground, you can post it on Kickstarter, detailing the process you're going to go through, what you need money for, etc. Then anyone who likes your idea can donate as much as they want. In return, they usually get a copy of the product (if it's something easily copy-able like a video game) or some other little trinket from the creator. For example, I donated to the "Polkadot" book series a few months ago.

Kickstarter, and sites like it, have come up in conversation a few times with people I know. And there is a sense from some people that it's a "scam" because you don't get any real return on your investment. Call me crazy, but I think there's something nice about a donation where you don't expect anything back. You just do it because you believe in the thing you're donating to. Not that you necessarily believe it will become massively profitable, and you want a cut of those profits, but maybe you just believe the world will be a slightly better place if that product exists than if it doesn't. It's a donation, not an investment. And there's something kind of nice about that, don't you think?

Polkadot ____

I've been thinking about backing a Kickstarter project for a little while now, but nothing particularly jumped out at me as something I cared enough about to fund with my own money. But today, I came across a project for a "gender non-binary children's book" called Polkadot ____. I'm assuming that's because the books will be called "Polkadot Goes to Preschool" or "Polkadot Does a Silly Dance" or "Polkadot Wears Polkadot Pants" or something, and that you don't actually pronounce it "Polkadot Blank" -- but who knows? According to the Kickstarter page:

Our series begins when our main character Polkadot; a child who was not assigned a gender, is at an age when their gender identity is still forming and emerging.  The first book in our series is entitled, "Polkadot Goes to Preschool." While Polkadot is the main character of the series, and therefore their gender identity is central, this series of books celebrate the beauty and validity of ALL gender identities.

I won't pretend to know what it's like to be transgender, but I can imagine that reading this book, or better yet, growing up in a world where you're surrounded by people who have read this book, can only  make it easier. To suggest to kids that the idea that maybe "I was born as a boy, therefore I'm a boy, it's that simple" might be wrong, it's a definite step in the right direction. So I threw the author a few dollars. Why not?

I also wrote up this blog post, which might bring in a few more for them, and it didn't even cost me anything! Now the trickier question. Should I try and get the word out to pro-LGBT people who might also contribute? Or should I instead get the word out to anti-LGBT groups, so that they can cause a big "controversy" over the fact that a book might teach children that people are different from each other, so that then even more pro-LGBT people will contribute, to spite the anti-LGBT people?