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Over the past seven years, more than 2,400 D.C. projects have turned to Kickstarter to get a funding boost. None has captured the hearts and minds quite like a cellist’s effort to make music for cats: David Teie’s 2015 campaign was backed by 10,165 people, the most of any local effort.
That tidbit comes courtesy of a series of visualizations published last week by the digital publication Polygraph, which mined Kickstarter data of funded projects from around the country. “The point of the whole thing was to show the undercurrent of creative communities in the U.S.,” says Polygraph founder Matthew Daniels.
Teie’s efforts to charm our feline friends won the most backers—to the tune of $241,651—but it is actually the Air and Space Museum that raised the most money via Kickstarter—coming up with $719,779 (from 9,477 backers) in a campaign to “reboot” Neil Armstrong’s spacesuit.
Cat music and spacesuits aside, the District (with a population of just 672,000 people) notably came in third for the journalism category. Slightly more than 2 percent of local Kickstarter projects are related to the field—triple the national average. Similarly, Nashville confirmed its own stereotype by coming in third for the music category (also with a population of just 678,000).
Other top projects in D.C., by the number of backers, include rings that double as dice, a climate change-themed board game, and a 12-sided die (who knew D.C. was such a hotbed for dice innovation).
You can see the breakdown by category below, or head over to Polygraph to play around with interactive features.
Rachel Sadon