Crowdfunding for the Arts

Crowdfunding and the fund-raising miracles it can achieve is certainly a popular issue. It’s not a new topic for technology in the arts, but it is a constantly evolving topic and worth a revisit. If you’re familiar with the basics, we’ve got some more advanced tips for crowdfunding. This article is meant to aggregate some of the more popular tools out there and help beginners with the basics.

Crowdfunding is usually based on the idea that through micro-donations organizations can achieve goals or projects that they would normally struggle to fund. From that point, all bets are off, as different crowdfunding tools are for different goals. A lot of deciding which tool you will utilize will be based on your organization or its goals. Here are some of the major websites that focus on or include the arts in their projects.

Kickstarter:

• Basics: We’ve talked about Kickstarter before and it is one of the most popular crowdfunding tools. Users have two months to raise funds and provide rewards to their patrons. Kickstarter’s guidelines specifically state you cannot use Kickstarter to fund a charity - you can, however, use it to fund projects for a non-profit. For example, No-Space of Brooklyn used Kickstarter to fund the move to and costs associated with their forced relocation.
• Pros: Kickstarter has an “all or nothing” platform, if funds are not raised within the 60 day limit, all pledges are dropped. Kickstarter is well known and a fairly safe bet for those looking to fund their first project.
• Cons: The project-centric ideology limits what can be crowdfunded. Also, Kickstarter uses Amazon Payments. While Kickstarter itself does not require those creating projects to be US citizens, Amazon Payments does, which makes Kickstarter out of the reach of international organizations.
• Fees: Kickstarter charges a 5% fee to successful projects. There is also a 3-5% fee associated with credit card transactions on successful projects.

USA Projects:

• Basics: USA Projects is another crowdfunding source we’ve discussed before, and it is a project of USA Artists. Potential projects have three months to raise the funds or receive nothing. The Project sponsors “new creative efforts by accomplished artists across the country” and has raised over $1 million so far. All suggested projects are vetted by artistic experts in the related field.
• Pros: USA Projects has a strong institutional background with USA Artists, allowing it to have a gift-matching component, and the average donor gives more than Kickstarter users. All donations are tax-deductible, and artists offer perks for donating.
• Cons: USA Projects only accepts artist members who have previously received a grant or award from their partner and recognized organizations as an individual artist.
• Fees: 19% of all donations go to USA Projects “for use in furthering its general charitable and educational purposes.”

IndieGoGo:

• Basics: IndieGoGo touts itself as “the world’s leading international funding platform”, and is open to “anybody with a great idea”. Projects are not curated. Users have up to 120 days to reach their goal, but unrealized goals still receive the pledged funds.
• Pros: Donations to non-profit organizations on IndieGoGo are tax-deductible, different donor levels have perks related to the campaign. Analytics tools allow campaign managers to track where/who funds are coming from, as well as capture contact information from funders. Anyone can use IndieGoGo for anything, which is has unlimited possibilities. IndieGoGo also has partnerships with non-profit organizations that fiscally sponsor projects.
• Cons: No vetting process on campaigns means your next big, great idea may not carry as much weight for donors as a website where projects are curated. Also the website caters more to individual artists’ projects than arts organizations - arts campaigns are not listed under “Causes” unless they have an educational component.
• Fees: IndieGoGo takes 4% of the money your project manages to raise, if your goal is met. Should your project fall short, IndieGoGo takes a 9% cut of funds raised. International campaigns may have higher fees.

RocketHub:

• Basics: RocketHub is a crowdfunding platform for anyone who would like their creative work to be funded, developed or distributed. RocketHub has two levels of fundraising, one is a crowdfunding tool open to anyone. Campaigns have between 15 and 90 days to be funded, unrealized goals will still be funded, but met goals have rewards within RocketHub. The second is called a “LaunchPad Opportunity”, which is a reoccuring vetted submission process. Projects chosen receive an opportunity that will advance their business or campaign beyond simple fundraising (for example, the winner of the LaunchPad Opportunity will work with an expert publicist on generating buzz for their project).  A team of judges at RocketHub examines all submissions, and Facebook users vote to help decide which projects to put on the website to fund.
• Pros: Successfully funded campaigns on RocketHub allow the campaign creator to submit 5 entries to their LaunchPad Opportunities without a cost. RocketHub has partnerships with non-profit organizations that fiscally sponsor projects.
• Cons: RocketHub does not have a specific “Art” category, although individual projects could fit well into their other categories.
• Fees: For crowdfunded fees, RocketHub charges 4% of the money you raise if your goal is met. For unfunded projects, the fee is 8%. RocketHub also charges a 4% transaction fees for credit card charges. For first time submitters to a “LaunchPad Opportunity”, there is a submission fee of $8. Those who have a project successfully crowdfunded do not have this fee.

IndieGoGo and RocketHub work outside the states, but there are other crowdfunding tools internationally. There are also tools like Philanthroper, which is a daily deal crowdfunding site for non-profit organizations. There are resources for staying on top of crowdsourcing trends, too. Ultimately, an individual or organization has to consider what type of crowdfunding campaign will work for their needs before deciding on one. If there are any other crowdfunding topics or questions you’d like answered, leave a comment, and we’ll see how we can help.

Peer to Peer Fundraising in the Digital Age

Back in the day, peer-to-peer fundraising was done with phone calls, letter-writing campaigns, and in-person visits. Now we have a whole new universe of not only digital communication, but digital relationships. Recently, I came across a cool infographic from Blackbaud that illustrated the power of harnessing online social networks to raise money for charity. It got me thinking- what are organizations doing to take advantage of this?

Peer to Peer Products

Peer to peer fundraising tools offered by Blackbaud (Friends Asking Friends) and Convio (Team Raiser) enable team members and participants to set personal fundraising goals and then go about asking friends and family for donations, the deadline for raising funds usually being an organizational event (primarily races to cure diseases). In fact, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, all of the top five P2P Giving organizations in 2010 were health organizations (for the top 25 online giving orgs of 2010 view slide 8 here).

Convio's Team Raiser

BlackBaud's Friends Asking Friends- thanks Frank Barry!

If you put on these participant-heavy events, here’s a post about 3 ways to add new event participants.  But according to a webinar by Blackbaud on Tuesday, you don’t have to have an event in order to use these tools. Organizations are using them both with ongoing fundraising and with virtual or digital events as well.

Website Tools

Both the Salvation Army and the World Wildlife Federation have cool things that are like the peer to peer tools above, but are designed for ongoing fundraising. The Salvation Army has an “Online Red Kettle”. You can either start your own red kettle, donate to an existing one, or send an eCard to your friends (via email) urging them to support one. If you set up your own, you can have your own fundraising meter, banner ad, or Facebook app.

Online Red Kettle

On the WWF’s site, you can search for or make a super-cute Panda Page (it can be for any animal), then email it to your friends and family. As of right now there weren’t any social media plug-ins on the page.

World Wildlife Federation Panda Page

Another way to configure your website to encourage peer-to-peer fundraising (also suggested by Frank Barry and Steve MacLaughlin of Blackbaud) is to immediately prompt online donors to share with their social networks when they make a gift, instead of only receiving a regular confirmation page or email. Use Facebook and Twitter plug-ins (like and share buttons, retweets etc) to make it simple for them to share with their networks.

You can also embed those same plug-ins in different areas of your website. Enable somebody to “like” a concert, or retweet a story about your outreach program.

Facebook Causes

Causes has alternately been held up as a model for success and derided for not delivering on its promises.  The basic idea is that it allows anyone to create an advocacy group, or “cause”. This cause can then raise funds to donate to a charity. One of the most successful causes is The Nature Conservancy, which has raised over $400,000. An arts success story is Keep the Arts in Public Schools, created by Americans for the Arts, which has raised almost $50,000. People can become members of the cause, donate, tell friends, and “give a minute” by watching and participating in ads that earn money for the cause.

Aaron Hurst of Taproot has been a critic of Facebook Causes since his organization devoted $3,000 of staff time to creating their Cause shortly after Facebook launched the feature.  They have received only $60 in return to date. Is Causes a rip-off or a revolution in fundraising? The jury’s still out, but it’s my guess that the different results are due to a combination of knowing how to facilitate peer-to-peer fundraising well, an organization’s existing fan base, and the type of cause. It’s interesting to note that at the Nature Conservancy, social networking was never primarily about raising money- it was “first and foremost a tool for brand and reputation,” said an organizational representative in this 2009 Washington Post article.

Kickstarter

Much has been written about Kickstarter and its cousins, IndieGoGo and RocketHub (among others- check out Pat’s article from last year). And certainly anyone using these tools knows that it’s all about mobilizing your social network. It’s really better suited to specific projects than ongoing fundraising, however. And unless you are able to get your supporters to in turn appeal to their own friends, you are probably going to be asking the same people you always ask anyway.

According to a recent article from NPR, Kickstarter has raised over $50M for creative projects since launching in 2009 and currently attracts $2M in pledges each week for projects.

Check out this Mashable article on other social fundraising alternatives.

The philosophical side

There’s a lot more to this than just raising more money. It’s also about building donors of the future, and increasing not just donations but engagement that will later lead to donations.

On Wednesday, the Case Foundation hosted the Millennial Donors Summit to talk about millennials’ approach to charitable giving. A lot of the points that were made apply not only to millennials, but also to peer-to-peer and social media fundraising. The following is excerpted from Katya’s Non-Profit Marketing Blog:

It’s not about telling millennials to support you; it’s about creating a vested interest in what you are doing with joint ownership. Let millennials manage your community, design your logo or otherwise be an active partner in what you seek to accomplish.

At some point, you have to build an army. You can only sell something yourself so many times—you need your community doing it for you, performing the heavy lifting. So give them ownership.

To be trusted on the web, be an individual, not an organization.

Look for the small yes.

Something that Frank and Steve mentioned in their webinar this week is that it’s more important to tell a compelling story than it is to make the ask when using social media to fundraise.  They gave examples of YouTube videos where the ask was a subtitle.  The story is what gets people interested.

Also, give them something to do besides donate. Encourage them to like your page, share the link or video, comment, or even answer a question (like at Free Rice) or send mom a card.

Many of these examples are from very large organizations that have teams of people to create these web tools. But these ideas can be applied on a smaller scale. How have you empowered your constituents to raise money and awareness for you? Do you know of arts organizations who are doing it successfully?

Kickstarter: funding for (and by) the masses

Crowdfunding websites are a simple way for artists to solicit and accept donations online.  One of the best-known sites is Kickstarter, which hosted the record-breaking crowdfunding of Diaspora. With Kickstarter, you set a fundraising goal and have three months to achieve it. If you reach your goal within three months, you keep the cash. If you don’t, the funds are returned to your backers.  You design a menu of rewards to motivate backers to give.  And, you keep 100% of ownership over your project -- an important consideration for artists dealing with copyright and distribution issues.

Helen DeMichiel, who funded a series of webisodes with Kickstarter, says the all-or-nothing structure is a great motivator. “You have to hustle,” she explains, and your backers get caught up in the excitement.

A previous project backer and current project starter, Tirzah DeCaria points out that most projects are funded largely by backers within the artist's existing network. She advises artists to look at Kickstarter as an opportunity to consolidate and mobilize your network rather than as a tool for reaching large groups of new fans. Of course, Kickstarter isn’t for everyone. The site is curated, and in addition to an application process, projects must have a U.S. address and a U.S. bank account. And there are the guidelines.

In a quick scroll through Kickstarter’s current projects, I came across many projects posted by individual artists or small groups, as well as projects by a design studio, a non-profit performance company, and a video game developer.  Kickstarter clearly doesn't exclude businesses, but established organizations aren't the primary users.  If your organization is considering a project, Joe's post on micro-donations has some good thoughts and advice.  And, again, consult Kickstarter's guidelines.

Other crowdfunding sites for artists:

• Projects on IndieGoGo can be based anywhere in the world. Unlike Kickstarter, the site isn’t curated, so projects cover a broad spectrum -- creative endeavors, causes, and entrepreneurial work.  And, IndieGoGo is not an “all-or-nothing” enterprise.  You can keep any funds you raise along the way.  IndieGoGo also has several innovative partnerships, including a fiscal sponsorship program through Fractured Atlas and the San Francisco Film Society.

• RocketHub is another “all-or-nothing” crowdfunding site geared toward artistic and creative projects.  RocketHub is not curated, though projects must be legal and “in good taste.”   You must have a PayPal account to start a project.

What is your experience with crowdfunding art?  Should established organizations stay out of it or join in the fun?