Interesting start, I'll be watching eagerly! I definitely think that good project front pages and statistical dashboards are the core of transforming Steem into this use case.
I'd like to see creators have the flexibility to run KickStarter type sprints of funding as well, in addition to the continual Patreon type backer level. This would spread easily to GoFundMe type applications as well.
RE: Introducing PineForest: Patreon-like ecosystem on the Steem blockchain [ANN]