Kickstarter offers no recourse to participants. Whatever equity is, it is not a no recourse payment.

Just to clarify.

Taken from http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/kickstarter%20basics#Doe...

"Does Kickstarter take some percentage of ownership or intellectual property of things made through Kickstarter?

Absolutely not. Project creators keep 100% ownership of their work."

If I'm not mistaken in this context I'm pretty sure "percentage of ownership" is synonymous with equity. At least the way equity as a word is being used in the context of this conversation.

Edit: Clarification

IndieGoGo, one of the big competitors to Kickstarter, is a better example. It actually has a category for Small Businesses and doesn't limit what kinds of projects are allowed on the site like Kickstarter does. They do, however, explicitly disallow offering equity as a contribution reward because of the very issue the JOBS act is about. From their FAQ:

"What violates our terms? - Offering any monetary return on investment or real property, including: real estate, annuities, lottery contracts, profit-sharing, cash, securities, equity or debt-repayment"

The site actually had some excited-sounding announcement about the JOBS act recently, but I can't seem to find it.

Among their list of prohibited items is "Financial incentives (ownership, share of profits, repayment/loans, etc)".

I suspect existing law forbids them from selling equity.