What works?

[flutterbychild.livejournal.com]

What do you think distinguishes a crowdfunded art project that works from one that does not? Clearly defined goals? Incentives? Opportunities for audience participation? I am quite curious, as I work to develop a project of my own.

What is a landing page? If an artist has a single, ongoing (over multiple months) project, would it be beneficial to create one?

One more question: are patrons more likely to donate when they know where the money is going?

Comments

Hmm...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>What do you think distinguishes a crowdfunded art project that works from one that does not? Clearly defined goals? Incentives? Opportunities for audience participation? <<

Those are all important, along with some other stuff folks have already mentioned. I'll add a big one that hasn't appeared yet: persistence. Sometimes it takes a few tries before hitting on a project style that works for you. Other times you find a style right away, but it takes a while to build up an audience and donations. So crowdfunding success depends a lot on sheer staying power.

>>What is a landing page?<<

A landing page is where you want your project's links to point; it gives newcomers an overview of the project and may provide a table of contents or other links to important subpages within the project. This way people are not just dropped into the middle of something with no explanation. They have a starting point.

>> If an artist has a single, ongoing (over multiple months) project, would it be beneficial to create one?<<

Yes. Any project that expands to more than one page will benefit from a landing page to aggregate the information for new viewers.

>>One more question: are patrons more likely to donate when they know where the money is going?<<

Often, though not always. We still don't have a lot of hard data, but input suggests that people do like knowing where their money goes. This also lets them choose to support things they care about (i.e. putting a roof over a writer's head, vet bills for a sick kitty, buying new paintbrushes for an artist).