"Subscriptions," such as those used in "Kickstart," a for-profit entity which collects a 5% fee on all funds generated for a given project, was similar to the manner by which Benjamin Franklin funded the establishment of the Philadelphia Public Library and the University of Pennsylvania, among others. It was also the method employed by Marcus Garvey to fund The Black Star Ship Line, before politically inspired prosecutions for "mail fraud" culminated in a contrived conviction, for which he served time in Atlanta Penitentiary, before his sentence was commuted by then-President Calvin Coolidge.
