I think it will sit there at a few thousand dollars and that would be that. I think people will donate more when they see the results.
Perhaps. My experience in general though (from having been involved in some crowdfunding campaigns for music things like small concert halls, grand pianos etc) is that people are more willing to contribute if they think that their contribution matters for the end result to come about at all. People don't seem to donate nearly as much as post-hoc signs of gratitude, or if they think that they will get access to the good in question (a review for example) even without their donation. We had this latter strategy recently, when we got a grand piano for our local small cultural house, and made the mistake of getting the piano before the downpayments were done, and thought we could rely on people's goodwill... not so. Whereas a previous project I was involved with on a church organ (don't ask) did the opposite, getting all the money beforehand, and it worked really well.
The other positive thing about involving people with donations
beforehand is that they get a strong sense of ownership. Imagine having 1000 or 2000 people contribute to this project before it comes to fruition. Unrealistic? Over the course of a year, I actually don't think so. These people would almost by necessity become strongly involved in this site, they would become more frequent contributors and commentators, etc. It's also likely that they would be more willing to contribute financially when you get the speaker reviewing going. The people I know who often do funding campaigns often report this to be the case, at least.
So say that this is the plan: You set a goal of reaching 35000 usd through a crowdfunding campaign, and promise to match that yourself once that threshold is reached (given what you write in the earlier post here - very generous indeed, if so!!). I feel very certain that the people who would donate to that would also be more likely to donate more money
afterwards, because they had already become involved, and would then like to see more return on their investment (i.e. more speaker reviews). I'm pretty sure there are names for these mechanisms among economists...