As you make your daily social networking rounds online, you may have noticed an increasing chorus of “Fund my Kickstarter project!” with follow-up tweets of “26 days left to reach our goal!” and “Click here to donate!” As gigs disappear, fees drop, and arts patrons turn toward bailing themselves out, artists are turning to a new source to finance their projects: you.
Micropatronage, or “crowdfunding,” is basically a fancy way of passing the hat—trying to get a lot of people to donate as little as one dollar or as much as thousands. Not a new concept per se, except the Internet infrastructure of carrying it out has finally come into its own. The website of choice is Kickstarter, although there are copycat alternatives.
How does Kickstarter work? Say you have a project you want funded—a recording, a recital, an audition tour, a full-scale opera production, a photo shoot, etc.—with a clear, tangible goal and a specific end date (not “pay for my voice lessons for as long as possible”). You visit www.kickstarter.com, start a project, input your info, and start soliciting donations. Kickstarter takes 5 percent, another 3-5 percent goes to Amazon, who processes the credit cards, and the rest is yours. The catch? You have to make 100 percent of your goal by the deadline, or you get nothing—your sponsors, aka “backers,” are never charged, and you are back to square one with your fundraising.
That’s it in a nutshell. There are some finer points to consider: you can offer “rewards” to donors who donate a certain amount (à la public television), you can decide at what increments people can donate (should the minimum be $5 or $25?), and you are encouraged to make a video to get people excited about your project.
So, does it work? Well, sometimes. Some get their projects funded and beyond, and others make little headway at all. Some people are happy to help out struggling artists, while others are irritated at all the “begging for spare change.” In other words, results may vary.
Let me stop babbling and introduce you to two people who have actually done it. One used Kickstarter successfully, and the other tried it but decided to go another way. Meet Melissa Fogarty and Jennifer Graf.
On Kickstarter’s “All-or-Nothing” Policy
Fogarty: With Kickstarter, if you don’t meet your goal, you don’t get any of the money. So I had a back-up plan—my spouse was going to contribute whatever I didn’t make, and then I would continue to fundraise using traditional methods later and pay her back. The great thing was I made my goal! But it still is important to have someone close to you that will either do that for you or will loan you the money to cover checks that you receive and then you write them a check later. (You can’t make donations yourself!)
I received over $1,000 worth of check donations [separate from Kickstarter because] some didn’t trust donating online and I had my spouse put about half of it in when I needed a boost. The deadline was about a week away, and donations appeared to be stagnating. (They really weren’t, because of the checks.) So I had some of that money put in and got a boost up to about 80 percent. That was important for potential backers to see because as they see the deadline approaching, they’ll have more incentive to help you. If they see a project about 50 percent funded with a few days to go, they won’t want to back a project that looks like it’s going to fail.
The best surprise was the hype created the last day: Kickstarter is on an all-or-nothing deadline. I was actually on vacation the evening before the drive ended, so I wasn’t even on Facebook. But when I logged on that next morning, the excitement created by other people on my page was really thrilling. Some real cheerleading was going on. People were writing things like “Only about $125 to go. Do I hear $125?” or “Look at your page, Missy!” And, of course, the best thing of all was the “Congratulations!” postings I got when I was through. I really felt like I had a team!
Graf: For me, the CD was being made one way or another, so I wasn’t happy with Kickstarter’s “all-or-nothing” approach. It would have been nice to have that extra $101 to put toward my CD project, even if it didn’t cover all my expenses. But it was definitely a learning experience. My first two CDs were Christmas CDs and did very well, so I wasn’t worried about money on those. Since this third release was much more of a niche genre, I knew that sales would not recoup my costs. I am very happy that I sought out sponsorship!
Since I didn’t hear about Kickstarter until later into my “timeline,” I really only used it to seek sponsors from a larger pool. When it became clear that I was not going to reach my goal on Kickstarter, I . . . kept my energies in my original fundraising format. I knew that if people gave me money directly, I’d be able to use it.
On Getting Sponsors
Fogarty: I used my entire network: those whose e-mail addresses I had and was Facebook friends with. Kickstarter made it easy to reach hundreds of people very quickly. Even so, I believe success is only possible by personalizing it as much as possible while still making one-on-one personal appeals. For example, I split up my network. I created Facebook groups of college friends and alumni, high school/childhood friends, and then everyone else. I had a specific approach when soliciting my friends from Eastman, and a different approach to my high school friends. You can’t “spray and pray” (just send out a massive message and expect to get funded). You have to work it. You can’t second guess who will give and who won’t, so leave no stone unturned.
Ask as many people one on one as you can, and give incentives. For example, one can donate as little as one dollar to a Kickstarter campaign. However, of course, you want larger donations. I wrote many personal emails asking people to join the “100 Club” I was forming—25 people to give $100. I would ask them to join and say, “I have x number of people on board already—might you be number y?” I got a lot of $100 donations this way, whereas if I didn’t ask for a specific amount, chances are I would have gotten less. Of course, if you feel that person can give more, ask for more (or “in the range of”).
What did people in the “100 Club” get? The “club” was just a feel-good measure to give people an incentive and a feeling of belonging. It worked!
Graf: The majority of sponsorship seeking I did was not via Kickstarter. I had already started my fundraising process and saw Kickstarter as a way to reach out to a broader audience of potential donors. My initial fundraising efforts were done via e-mail, Facebook, and word of mouth.
It did feel a little weird to be asking for money. Going into the fundraising portion of my project, however, I came up with clear levels of sponsorship and [rewards] for the levels (everyone who gave money got their name in the CD liner notes, and people who gave at a higher level also got a free CD). I worked very hard to not seem pushy. I put it out there for people to know about, then let it go. I didn’t pester any one person individually, as to not make anyone uncomfortable.
My advice would be to have a very well thought-out plan. Have a clear idea of what people will get in exchange for giving you money. Make it very business-like. Orchestras and theater companies ask for money all the time; I thought of myself on that same level. I also made it very clear to people that making a donation to my project was not tax deductible.
Also, give yourself plenty of time. I didn’t get the idea to fundraise until I was a month and a half out from my final deadline. I wish I had thought of it earlier.
