Our Community Guidelines provides a comprehensive list of perks that cannot be offered by campaigners. We asked our experts from our Trust & Safety team to shed some more light on what you as a campaigner have to consider when you set up your campaign and list of perks:
Can I offer a raffle or lottery?
Campaign owners are not allowed to offer any form of lottery or gambling. For example, a perk offering a raffle ticket to win a car is not allowed on your campaign. Anything that resembles a game of chance or lottery is prohibited.
A good alternative is to run a referral contest. Information on referral contests can be found here.
Can I offer alcohol?
Campaign owners are not allowed to offer any alcoholic consumer products for shipping; this includes perks such as wine, beer, or hard liquors.
As an alternative, campaign owners may offer vouchers or memberships in lieu of shipping alcohol, offering in person delivery or in-store pickup of the alcoholic consumer products. Please note that vouchers are only available for alcohol and not any other prohibited perks.
Can I offer my contributors shares in my venture or a return on their investment?
Campaign owners are not allowed to offer any form of "security" (as such term is defined in the Securities Act of 1933). This means that campaign owners are not allowed to offer perks such as notes, stocks, treasury stocks, security futures, security-based swaps, bonds or debentures. For a comprehensive list, please take a look at the Securities Act of 1933 on the SEC website.
Can I offer my contributors a share of future profits?
Campaign owners are not allowed to offer any form of financial incentive or participation in any profit sharing; financial incentives include items such as prepaid debit cards, bullion, pure cash, bitcoin, NFTs, and other cryptocurrency. Memberships and discounts are all acceptable.
Can I offer weapons or related items?
Campaign owners are not allowed to offer any weapons, ammunition and related accessories. This means campaign owners may not offer perks such as firearms, brass knuckles, or other weapons. Related accessories include holsters, scopes, storage cases and gunpowder. Memberships to firing ranges and range time are acceptable.
Can I offer vaporizers or pipes?
Campaign owners are not allowed to offer any controlled substances such as CBD products or drug paraphernalia. Campaign owners cannot offer perks such as hookah pipes, grinders, vaporizers, pipes, bongs, marijuana, cigarette paper, syringes, prescription drugs, or any other devices that are intended to be used primarily to enhance or facilitate the consumption of controlled substances.
Can I offer my contributors a plane ticket to come visit me and my project?
It depends. You are more than welcome to offer perks that involve flights provided by authorized airlines. However, campaign owners are not permitted to launch an airline or issue tickets that have not been authorized by the US Department of Transportation.
What if I have a question about something not mentioned above?
Contact us at trust@indiegogo.com and we’ll be happy to help you out! As this list is not comprehensive, please also visit our Community Guidelines for more details.