Solutions?

I've tried quite HARD with Onarbor, https://onarbor.com, a crowdfunding for Science site, but its not exactly setting the world on fire. Would love if you have any specific suggestions.

I think the problem is that even most "Holy shit, we broke all our expectations!" Kickstarters are...modestly successful grants, in terms of scientific funding. And most crowd funding for science is, for lack of a better word, not worth the effort. The campaigns that are existing dwell mainly in the realm of "can fund a grad student's field work", and carry a significant burden in teaching/educating university admin in terms of where this money comes from, trying to not get them to take overhead from it, etc.

I don't think that a very good idea. People outside of that specific area of research would have no way of knowing whether a particular research proposal is worth funding or not.

I would expect people to end up funding the department which can produce the best promotional video. Then I expect departments to start spending ridiculous man hours producing promotional youtube videos.

Our site has a whole Stackoverflow-based review and voting processes. So crowdfunding is a smaller part of it. Also, you don't submit a video. You just post the work and a preview if you see fit. The content can be of any type (doc, audio, video, images, HTML5 apps). It is worth understanding the site more before striking it down.

Then why did you introduce it as a "crowdfunding for Science site", if "crowdfunding is a smaller part of it"?

Because most people know what crowdfunding is. The General public doesn't know about Stackoverflow and Onarbor is not a Q&A site. It's about publishing, reviewing, and funding content. That's not very catchy so I would appreciate it if you might have alternative suggestions on how to describe it.

How is this site science related? I search science, and the only thing that pops up is "Science Fiction Paintings." I search physics, and the only thing that pops up is "Karate."

The simple answer is the site is new and that's what people are posting. We aren't censoring submissions. The point is to be inclusive. If you know academic journals you know about the barriers to entry.

I typed "machine learning" in the search box and it returned 6 unrelated results for a query it interpreted as "ma". Thinking that maybe it only accepted two letter queries, I tried "CS" (computer science) and it returns nothing. I'm not sure how to find anything related to my knowledge on this site. :(

[1] https://onarbor.com/search/q/machine%20learning

Aside from philanthropy, the best solution is a systemic change of the system, and the NIH has been aware of this problem for many years (even before being codified in the Tilghman reports).

Funding, in particular, is a sacroscant concept in the sciences. I think your effort is a good one, because researchers as a whole are well adapted to making one's dollar go as far as possible. However, since funding is so central there is a byzantine set of rules at each institution for its acceptance and use. Perhaps you should start at the administrative level?

Honestly I feel like your site could benefit from quality design and marketing. When I visit that site I have literally no idea what it does, how it functions, what the company is, etc. etc.

I love the idea btw.

Yes what ryanSrich said. Try adding some example projects that have worked, some pictures and some campaigns.

The site almost looks like an internal VPN search that I shouldn't be accessing, but you should be making it irresistible. :) good luck!

The colored google-like letters are cute- but not enough. Try making it look more like kickstarter or indiegogo.

or http://publiclab.org

Also the "I'm feeling Generous" button returns an error if I don't fill in anything! Make it do something in case I really am feeling generous and want to fund something. Suggest something, etc.

but what is broken? Perhaps there are far more smart people than there is need for? Its hard to break into a field where other people are actually that much better, its even harder to acknowledge it.

Define "need." Science is funded by governments. Certainly there are more smart passionate people then can be supported by the current funding level. So how much science do you want? I want more then we're getting. I think we should fund more science and that's the fastest way to fix it.