Kickstarter is a new online community platform for funding creative projects that works on the premise that small donations can quickly add up to a large amount of working capital, a model that was used to great success by the Obama campaign.

The site enables users (currently for U.S. residents and by invite only) who are seeking financial backing to create profiles and share their projects with the public, detailing the scope of their ventures using video, images and text. Linked to this page is a blog where creators can post project updates and other relevant information.

Those interested in donating can navigate through the various proposals, easily seeing how much has currently been raised, both as a dollar amount and percentage of the total goal. And while the site’s capability currently allows searches by creator and project name, it would be helpful to have the projects arranged by general category (i.e. Photography, Film, Music, Journalism).

That being said, the service is unique in a number of ways. In effort to maintain realistic goals and offer additional motivation, funding rounds are kept to a strict timeframe (it appears to be 90 days) and no money is actually collected until an entire goal has been met. In the event that time expires before funding is met, no transaction takes place. This eliminates creators from feeling obligated to meet expectations by tackling a project without the necessary finances. However, should creators succeed, they own and control 100% of all contributions raised, minus the small credit card processing fees charged by Amazon (Amazon is waiving these fees until July 15th).