Funding
As the world worries about economic recession, support for the arts is often the first area to see its funding reduced. Here we look at alternative ways to finance your creative project using crowd funding, an online system where lots of people provide small amounts of cash via social networks and online media.
Unbound is a crowdfunding site for writers who fancy an ‘alternative’ way of getting together with readers who might like to fund their next book! It wants to give both authors and readers a greater say in which books get published and it functions very much like many of the current, and successful, crowdfunding sites.
RocketHub aims to help you raise funds for your project using a rocket theme and multiple ‘fuelers’. It functions like many of the other crowd funding sites in that you set a target and time limit, then promote your fundraising through social media.
Crowdfunder is based in a castle in the UK and there aren’t many crowd funding sites which can say that! It offers funding services with the clear aim of free membership, no joining fees and no ‘funny’ stuff. Quite nice in a world heavy with lots of ‘funny ‘ stuff.
IndieGoGo is a US-based crowd funding service for creative, charity or entrepreneurial projects which want to raise money to realise their idea. What is different about this one, compared to some of the other online services, is that if you don’t reach your intended funding goal, you still get to keep whatever funds have been pledged.
Kickstarter is a funding website which, well, kickstarts your creative project by finding funding for you. It allows you to publicise what you are doing and find numerous people who like the idea and will pledge a small amount of the funding you need to reach your total. Since starting they have found over twenty million Dollars for projects.
Sponsume is the UK’s leading viral funding site (they say!) which provides you with an opportunity to attract micro-funding from large numbers of supporters who each contribute a portion of a much larger amount.
