A week or so ago, I wrote about CSA, community-supported arts, a concept that borrows from the community-supported agriculture movement. In case you missed it, here’s the post.
Another creative idea for supporting the arts is crowd funding. I learned about it from the Backstage blog by way of ArtsJournal.com.
” ‘I saw people believing in themselves enough to try and make money for their projects,’ said Monica Mirabile, a co-founder of the Copycat Theatre. Earlier this year, Mirabile was applying for grants for her Baltimore-based theater troupe when a friend suggested she look into Kickstarter, a ‘crowd-funding’ website that promotes artistic projects through social media and allows donors to
support fundraising campaigns with any amount of money they desire. Crowd-funding sites have grown in popularity over the last few years and continue to attract artists and benefactors. …
” ‘This is not the newest idea on the block. It’s very traditional. But we’ve become very used to the idea of someone in a boardroom giving us a check and we hand them a piece of art and cross our fingers. The longer history of art is actually one of patronage that involves the artist’s audience. …
” Users of crowd funding must summarize their projects and goals for potential donors, a process that can help artists sharpen the skills needed to pitch or develop those projects in the future. ‘I learned how to better articulate why I’m doing the project and my artwork and what we’re trying to gain,’ said Mirabile. ‘I made friends because, by promoting, I got to talk to different
people in my community and made connections.’ ”
Read more here. And if you try an approach like Kickstarter, would you let me know how it worked for you? Leave a comment.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
Kickstarter can be incredible. Here is a link to a project that received tremendous support. I love the ‘pitch video’ — Jane McGonigal is a leader in gaming for good and has quite a following. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1163482373/gameful-a-secret-hq-for-worldchanging-game-develop?ref=live
Here is a link to an existing, in-progress, project by one of my Art History professors from Pomona College that I just supported. Much smaller scale, but I think Kickstarter is a great tool for her as well.