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Homicide Watch D.C. has eight days left in the Kickstarter its founders launched last month in hopes of keeping the site alive while they participate in a 10-month fellowship at Harvard. As of this writing, Laura and Chris Amico have raised just shy of $25,000 out of their $40,000 goal.

We’ve made no secret of our admiration for the Amicos’ work in doggedly following every homicide recorded in the District of Columbia. Yet while both Martin and I made donations, as have many other journalists, there’s been some fair questioning about whether the crowd-sourced funding model is the best hope to keep Homicide Watch going, powered by intern reporters while the Amicos supervise from afar.

The City Paper’s Will Sommer noted that the customary Kickstarter awards for donations of various levels are a bit underwhelming at the upper echelons. To date, no one has bitten at the Skype chat with Homicide Watch’s editor that come with a $1,000 donation, much less the guest lecture in exchange for $5,000.

And former DCist contributor Dave Stroup was even blunter on his blog a few weeks ago, when he dismissed Homicide Watch—worthy though the site may be—as a poor example of how to use Kickstarter’s platform.

How much will they pay [the interns]? As a backer, that’s something I want to know. What about overhead? Does $40,000 guarantee the site will exist for a year and hire and pay the interns well? The premise of Kickstarter hinges on the promise of project creators that, if their goal is hit, the project will be completed as described and rewards delivered.

Still, having reached nearly 60 percent of its goal with still more than a week left in which to solicit donations is hardly an indicator Homicide Watch won’t reach $40,000. Many Kickstarter campaigns go down to the wire. Penny Arcade, a $525,000 video game project (yes, a very different product), reached its lofty goal with just 38 minutes on the clock.