Crowd-funding is becoming a bigger and bigger concept and conceivable way of raising money to create/make/help people move closer and closer to their dream. It’s definitely a much more popular way of raising money than even twelve months ago and more often than not, you have a conversation with an emerging filmmaker and they’re either thinking about, have completed or are in the process of running a campaign to crowd-fund their project.
I’ve already talked about the crowd-funding campaign for With A Little Help From Our Friends here and here. They run through most of the things that I’ve picked up on that you can do for yourself to give you the best possible chance of hitting your goal. Nothing is ever guaranteed, but there are definitely things you can do to put together a fantastic campaign.
The main thing I’ve noticed recently, as more and more campaigns get launched every day, is that often people underestimate the power of the internet.
The internet is a huge, international being. Social media – the main way that word of projects and campaigns is spread these days – is a worldwide phenomenon. A crowd-funding project launched in Australia, can hit people who are on their computers in America, Ukraine, the United Kingdom. These people also have money that they can give to your campaigns. They also have friends that they can pass your campaign on to.
Don’t alienate them.
More frequently, I’m seeing projects that have perks that are restricted to particular regions. A perk reward of a ticket for a local event in Brisbane is less likely to interest a contributor who is based in Denver and has no chance of getting to Australia for the dates. And yes, there will be some people who give money for the sake of giving money, but more often than not, the average person would like something for their money.
Make your perks accessible internationally.
Why cut yourself off to additional members of your audience? You spread the net as wide as you can so that you give every single person who looks at your campaign an equal chance of contributing to it. That doesn’t mean that you can’t have perks that are local – but make sure you have a range of perks that are accessible on an international scale.
And open yourself up to dollars, pounds, euros, rupees, roubles – all of it!
