I made a post the other day about a college dance department using Kickstarter to fundraise. Today, let's consider professional dance companies and choreographers.
The link below is an interesting article specifically about dance campaigns on Kickstarter. Last year, articles were stating that in 2012 Kickstarter would distribute more funds than the NEA.
As San Francisco Bay Area dancer Mo Miner describes,
I found Kickstarter to be incrediblyand user-friendly. The website is straight-forward and clear and you don't need to be tech-savvy to maneuver through it. I made a video for the Paufve Dance Kickstarter campaign and it was fairly easy. I used iMovie to create a video from previously recorded performance footage, still photos, and flip camera footage of Artistic Director Randee Paufve and several company members explaining the project. It is easy to send updates to your donors through the website and Kickstarter has a great survey tool that allows you to easily collect addresses for donors when it comes time to send thank you notes and gifts. We ended up making a thank you card with a company photograph on the front that each company member signed. It didn't take that long and many of my friends told me that it was a very touching gift that they hung on their refrigerator! I think it is important to choose thank you gifts that are simple and thoughtful so that they mean something to those who help support you, but they don't create a lot of extra work and expense on your end. Also, wait to address thank you gifts until you get responses from the survey...I tried to be very efficient and get everything ready in advance, but many people never responded with their addresses and ended up not wanting gifts. As a donor to several Kickstarter campaigns, it was important to me that the artist included a video and thorough description of how my money would directly help in their efforts. Good luck on your next Kickstarter campaign!!
----
Oakland based artists Sue Li-Jue and Nina Haft launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a performance at the ODC Theater in March 2012. Nina says,
Sue did most of the work on setting this up for us, but I was consulting and using it all the way along. I had more of the lead on making the video (wrote the script, set up the locations and shots, while a colleague edited it and uploaded it for us).
It is not hard to set up Kickstarter, but things to know are that you are assigned a "rep" from Kickstarter, and for some reason we got someone who did not seem familiar with the world of dance. S/he kept insisting we were not giving valuable enough rewards, suggesting that we give away tickets to our show for a $25 donation. Despite having researched many comparable dance Kickstarter campaigns (and being consistent with their reward structure), this really delayed our getting our campaign up. My advice: leave extra lead time to set it up before you make it live.
Prepping the video was easy; I wrote the script, we each videotaped rehearsal footage; we self-shot the scenes where we were in the frame; Sue recorded us on Garage Band; we gave it all to someone who is quick and also experienced as making Kickstarter videos. I think ours really held up.
Following up with thank yous was fun and easy. We could email people immediately to say thank you for supporting us, and we took care of the rewards by encouraging people who attended the show to pick theirs up at our table. We then snail mailed out the rest. One other thing to consider: be sure to include in the cost of your campaign the expenses of making and mailing your rewards! This can really add up.
Finally, be prepared to give away 10% of your donations. Kickstarter takes 5% and Amazon Payments takes 5%.
Other tips - designate what these funds are for so that your participating artists are enthusiastic about helping get the word out. We raised funds for dancer fees, so backers were really happy to support their friends in donations of all sizes. This gathered buzz, and enabled us to talk about it on FB more frequently. If you raise funds for something that truly only benefits a couple of people (i.e. choreographer's fee, or purchase of a scenic piece), then you are likely to have a smaller circle of "fund-raisers" - i.e. dancers and collaborators who are motivated to promote the campaign.
-----
I personally think that Kickstarter has become a great tool for the dance community in the United States. With fewer and fewer grants available, artists truly appreciate all the help they can receive. And, in this digital age, using the internet versus hand signing and sealing thousands of donation letters is very helpful.
The email updates, the video posts, and the links on Facebook all make Kickstarter easy to access and easy tounderstand, in terms of what you might be funding.
Spend a few minutes on the Kickstarter website to see what dance projects are seeking funding at the moment. Whether you are asking for $5,000 or $40,000, Kickstarter can help begin your fundraising campaign.
In terms of "paying it forward," a colleague of mine shared that she frequently will pitch in $10-20 for every Kickstarter campaign that comes across her inbox. I also try to do the same. Let's support each other and artmaking!