Canadians keen to fund creative works via popular crowdsourcing site Kickstarter will be able to do so by the end of the summer.

The New York-based company will announce its plans for expansion via its website Thursday morning.

Right now, anyone looking to fund creative projects on the site needs a U.S. or U.K. bank account, although Kickstarter representative Justin Kazmark said people have been able to get around that in the past by partnering with someone in the U.S.

The website allows campaigners to pitch creative projects by offering incentives to those pledging money, such as a speaking role in a film or copies of DVDs or a dinner out with the creative mind behind the proposed project.

Although Kazmark said he couldn’t give a specific date for the launch, he said Canadian projects will be available for pledges by the end of the summer. However, Kazmark said Canadians will be able to start building project pages, which are extensive and often include video, in the next couple of weeks. Kazmark said Canadian-based projects will be on the same site as the current ones.

To date, Kickstarter has successfully garnered funding for more than 40,000 projects (it has been unsuccessful with over 50,000 ones), including an upcoming film version of the long-cancelled Veronica Mars TV show, which still holds the Kickstarter record for the fasted fundraising pitch to reach $1 million. The proposed film hit the million-dollar mark in four hours and 24 minutes in March.

If the projects are unsuccessful, the pledges don’t proceed and people are not charged. If the project succeeds, Kickstarter takes a 5 per cent cut of whatever the project earns in the U.S. and a 3 to 5 per cent fee in the U.K. There is no news yet on how the fee system would work in Canada.

Currently Canadians looking to fundraise for projects can use the international crowdsourcing site Indiegogo, which was perhaps most notably used recently by Gawker for “Crackstarter,” its attempt to purchase the alleged Rob Ford crack smoking video.

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