Becoming a patron of the arts used to require big bucks and the kind of connections that only people who can afford to buy tables at charity events possess. In turn, becoming a successful filmmaker, rock star, or notable novelist often hinged on being backed by an investor or corporation that had the aforementioned money and contacts necessary to get you noticed.
But thanks to a concept called crowdfunding, where a creative type asks people, often those they don’t know, to donate money to a specific project, all it takes to support the arts is an Internet connection and some pocket change.
One of the best examples of crowdfunding can be found on a site called RocketHub.com, which takes the idea of group giving one step further. Artists who need money for their project must be prepared to give their fuelers (the site’s word for donors) something in return, whether that be a signed copy of their finished CD, a home-cooked meal, or a field trip to a nearby winery. But that’s just the first step. The second comes in the form of a deadline: anyone who registers a project on RocketHub must name their monetary goal as well as the length of time they’ll need to reach it by. If they don’t hit their mark, all of the money raised is returned to whoever donated it. “The deadline allows it to become an online event,” says Brian Meece, who founded the site in January with two former co-workers, Vladimir Vukicevic and Jed Cohen. “Early fuelers really take ownership of a project and start broadcasting it on Facebook and Twitter. And the rewards give the artists a chance to build their brands and show people a different side of themselves.”
No one exemplifies this better than singer/songwriter Jeneen Terrana (below left). Terrana set out to raise $4,000 to record her third album, and she did so by tapping into a skill that had nothing to do with singing: she baked — a lot. Calling upon her lifelong love of making homemade cakes, brownies, and other treats, Terrana used her pastry prowess to attract fuelers. “I usually bake for my gigs and I make wedding cakes so I started thinking about the baking angle for rewards,” says Terrana.
In addition to offering fuelers batches of brownies or almond roca, Terrana also took to the streets with her sweets. For 10 days she filmed herself baking a different item — everything from flourless chocolate cupcakes to carrot cake with cream cheese frosting — then uploaded the videos to the RocketHub site with instructions on where she would be that day (usually a park in New York City) if viewers wanted to sample the treats and donate to her cause. “It went over really well, so I had to keep thinking of new ways to get people involved,” says Terrana, who also sold slices of cake at work, and threw house concerts with her desserts on display. “I had no idea how excited people would get.” Before long, Terrana had soared past her $4,000 goal, eventually raising $4,319, which covered all of her recording costs.
The concept of crowdfunding emerged in 2008 when sites like Spot.us, which commissions journalists to write articles on underreported topics and SellaBand.com, a destination for musicians trying to make an album, began cropping up. The term even has its own Twitter page. Newer sites, like KickStarter.com are also becoming popular with the creatively active, though unlike RocketHub, which is open to all, KickStarter requires users to apply for a place on its interface. According to Meece, crowdfunding owes its success largely to social media sites. “Before Facebook or Twitter, you needed to have trust in an actual person,” he says. “Now you can ‘see’ someone on Facebook.” He also believes the ability to foster someone’s creativity, even in a small way, adds to RocketHub’s appeal. “It’s the new creative economy.”
That notion of creatives helping creatives is one photographer Melissa Maples (whose work is below) is banking on, literally. Maples, who lives in Turkey, is currently working on a project called Hidden Anatolia, which aims to unmask the mysteries and customs of Turkish life through a coffee table book filled with evocative images and essays. “At first I was worried that people would think I was shamelessly begging for money, but the way the rewards system works, it’s actually more like people are making an investment,” says Maples, who has raised almost $1,400 of her $5,000 goal so far. “Contributors instantly become patrons of the international artistic community, something a lot of people have ambitions of doing at some magical point in the future when they imagine they’ll have significant expendable income. This way, anyone can get involved at any level they feel comfortable with.”
Here’s how it works: Once a creative posts their project and rewards (a “Rewards Encyclopedia” lives on the site for people who need inspiration), the clock begins ticking. The artist can add videos and blog posts to their page and are encouraged to spread the word through social networking sites and email blasts. Singer/songwriter Theresa Hoffmann (top right), of the band Little Embers, ran a promotion nearly everyday — whether that meant singing in a subway station or offering a day trip to a winery to those who donated $50 to her cause within a certain time frame — until she met her $5,000 goal. Supporters can “fuel” a project by credit card or Paypal. If the project times out, the money is returned to their user account as “Rocket Fuel” which they can put toward another project or be refunded. If the project reaches its goal, RocketHub gets an 8 percent cut of the money raised.
The site, which as of now has no corporate backers, is currently hosting around 50 ongoing projects, a number Meece and his partners hope to increase largely by meeting face to face with burgeoning musicians, writers and artists who are flush with creativity, but not cash. “It’s very empowering to publish a book or record an album without an industry behind you,” says Meece, a ukulele player who knows from whence he speaks: he recently crowdfunded more than $5,000 to record his own album. “The next U2 isn’t going to be on a major record label. They’re going to do it through grass roots and social media. My goal is to help that artist come through the ranks.”
Photos by Theresa Hoffman, Jeneen Terrana and Melissa Maples.