David Murray is an Oakland artist/screen printer who earlier this year, turned to crowdfunding .

"All in all, it's been an incredible experience," Murray said. "It's hard out there for artists, but every time I get down on myself and think 'oh, nobody really likes my work,' I immediately remember the 570-plus people who helped me out through Kickstarter and I cheer up." He raised more than $30,000 (exceeding his goal of $9,000). 

If you're feeling charitable this holiday season, crowdfunding websites can help you find a place to donate a dollar or more. In the past few years artists, teachers and small businesses have all taken to raising money using social media. Here are some of the most popular sites:

Donors Choose

This site allows public school teachers to put together money for learning essentials like microscopes, blank music sheets, chess boards, digital projectors, field trips and more. Projects do not have deadlines - the site continues to take donations until the goal is met. Oakland projects can be found here. 

Indiegogo

This site first became known as the spot to raise money for independent films, but it's now expanded to include creative projects in multiple media forms. To view projects with Oakland roots, click here.

Kickstarter

This site features both creative works and small business ventures, including several from Oakland

Loudsauce 

A new crowd funding site that just started in San Francisco in the last few months. It helps folks to pool money to buy advertising slots. Although you can't search by city (yet?) we recognized some local projects from other sites. Here's a list of some of the projects, in their words, looking to raise funds now - from the two sites that allowed us to search by both deadline (now through Jan. 1) and location (Oakland). We've listed them in chronological order - with the most urgent requests at the top of the list. 

Dec. 15 (CLOSED)

Our softcover book, "Pacha’s Pajamas: A Story Written by Nature," is made with recycled paper and soy inks. It is the story of a little girl who dreams of uniting the planet with a music festival starring a host of singing plants and dancing animals.

Join us in completing my third wave of community-engaged revision for my first poetry collection, "quiet of chorus," which was a finalist for Poets & Writers’ 2010 California Writers Exchange Award.

Dec. 20 (CLOSED)

The compelling story of poet and a human rights activist - Alice Walker.

Help fund Yelling Clinic (a disability arts collective) travel to Vietnam to explore issues of war, pollution and disability.

Dec. 21 (CLOSED)

Temescal Street Cinema is a FREE outdoor movie series, featuring films by Bay Area artists.

Dec. 22 (CLOSED)

A short form documentary film that aims to describe some of the key concepts of Unified Field Theory in a visual and aesthetic way.

Dec. 23

Help Even Taylor finally record professionally!

Introducing "HOSTEL ENVIRONMENT" - a single camera, scripted comedy about three delusional, incompetent losers with big aspirations, who are hired by a narcissistic wannabe-celebutante to work in her family’s rundown hostel in San Francisco, with the hopes of driving away customers.

Dec. 30

The lowest amount a "Big Stage Band" will spend on one album with the PR to support it is around $150,000. We think we can do pretty good with at least $25,000 to start on the recording/production of a new album and to hire professional help get our name ringing out throughout the land. 

We're on the home stretch. Awaken Cafe is a local, independent cafe coming soon to downtown Oakland.

Dec. 31

I'm publishing a book titled "Oakland in Popular Memory: Interviews with 13 cutting-edge artists from Oakland and beyond."

Jan. 1

SnowXu foldable snowshoes are perfect for a wide range of hikes, trails and winter conditions.

Help young people build strong voices through debate. Your $20 helps earn a $10K match for a new generation of great debaters!

For those of you considering a new crowdfunding project in the next year, David Murray offers some advice.

"You need to plan and lay some serious groundwork. I go on Kickstarter a couple of times a day to check out new projects (I've backed a few good projects as well), and there are so many people who just give virtually no information, no reason to back their project, nothing. A good friend of mine encouraged me to research similar Kickstarters that had succeeded and failed, and see what they did right, what they did wrong, etc. - I think this is good advice for anyone." 

"My project was funded in roughly 48 hours, and virtually all of the initial backers were familiar names and faces - a very gratifying mix of old friends from high school and college, longtime SEIBEI fans, colleagues from working the designer show circuit, and artists that I look up to who I was surprised even know who I am. I think a big part of this was that I planned and promoted the Kickstarter for a long time before I actually posted it online, so by the time it hit, people were chomping at the bit to help me out and pledge and were eager to spread the word quickly."