When you're browsing Kickstarter, you could help drop another few million dollars on the Pebble team. But as satisfying as an e-ink smartwatch is, you'll be missing out on the feeling of rescuing a project from defeat, or of being the one person who tips it into fundable territory. That's the premise behind Kicksaver, a site devoted to finding and funding proposals that end soon and only need a few more backers to succeed. To use Kicksaver, you enter an amount you'd be willing to spend. The system then looks up any projects that need that much or less to meet their goal and sorts them by closing date or amount, letting you swoop in and save a Portland Waiting for Godot production for $35 or a performance by the Atlanta Society for the Preservation and Promotion of Sapphic Social Mores for $75.
The site, a self-described open source "weekend project" that's unaffiliated with Kickstarter, seems to have a few kinks left: when we searched for sub-$100 projects, we kept getting one that was already funded. Kickstarter itself also gives you an "ending soon" tag. Still, it's a unique way to browse Kickstarter that's not currently served, and who doesn't want to help fund a shirt commemorating the worst skate park in Provo, Utah? Programmers (or anyone, really) can find the source code over at GitHub.