I mention this above, but my first thought on &quot;impact&quot; is that they&#x27;re really neat experiments, but it&#x27;s very much in the domain of &quot;enough preliminary data to keep a grad student busy for a bit and justify a pilot grant submission&quot;. A great stepping stone, but...<p>I&#x27;ll be honest, I looked at crowdfunding when I was working on my dissertation. It was <i>more work</i> than an industry grant (especially when you include wooing the public) for a fraction of the money.