Crowdfunding: Connecting Creators and Patrons

Project recap:

My husband and I are working on building a nursery, and used most of our budget up with the boring practical parts - wallboard, wiring, flooring and such. I was looking at curtains, and disappointed that I was probably going to be stuck with something stapled up over the windows. (Sort of like we've got in the bedroom, actually...) So, I decided to see if I could crowdfund some good light-blocking curtains, rods and brackets.

The plan was to paint free ACEO abstracts to prompts, with a whole lot of perks for donations - both individual and group goals. Individual perks included receiving the original in the mail, requesting larger paintings, animated icons, and the ability to prompt in advance, not necessarily catch the window of opportunity (which was planned for four hours and stretched to 6). Group perks (when total donations got to certain milestones) included everyone getting an icon, everyone getting a painting (not previously guaranteed), animating the icons, sponsors getting a second painting and free ACEO prints.

Full details can be seen in the original announcement here: http://ellenmillion.livejournal.com/1213361.html


Results

This project definitely has to be classified as a success! I earned enough to get exactly the curtains and hardware I most wanted, and some window trim and light fixtures, to boot (photos will be posted as they are installed!). I made my first four goals: every prompter had a painting made for them, as well as an animated icon, and everyone who donated got a second painting to their prompt! We are inching towards the next goal (just $45 to go!), at which point everyone would get a free ACEO print of their choice, too. Sales of the available ACEOs and prints will count towards this; I will be closing that down at the end of the week.

Several individuals specifically asked for nothing in return, just wanted to donate to the project in general. One asked me to use their donation to sponsor other individuals so they could get their originals, and a few folks sponsored specific other individuals! I was really touched by how many complete strangers took part and donated... I expected some modest response from my immediate group of friends, but I was surprised by how word spread further - and attracted new people in. Very, very few people posted prompts without donating - I actually had to do a bunch of unprompted paintings so I'd have enough available ACEOs for supporters who got to choose extras to select from.

I painted a LOT of images... more than 90 ACEOs and a handful of larger paintings over just more than a week, plus a few later prompts I had to chase down and a few do-overs; I'm still scanning more as they dry! Some of the originals are still available, and prints of all of them are also - pricing is available at the entry that shows them all: http://ellenmillion.livejournal.com/1216777.html





Here are the icons I've finished for folks so far:

( Behind this cut, because although I tried to keep the animations subtle and non-obnoxious, that many blinking things may cause seizures... )

What Worked

People responded well to several points of the project:

Cause. People seemed to appreciate that the money I was raising was going towards a tangible, useful thing, and one mentioned that it was like a mini baby shower.

Perks. People responded to the perks, frequently paying more specifically to get a larger painting, and at one point, an individual sent enough to deliberately bump us up to the next group perk level.

The paintings themselves. I was really nervous about offering up my abstracts for this project; I'm an illustrator, and tend to highly-detailed ink representational art... the exact opposite of the loose, colorful abstracts I was making for this! Besides that, who knew if people were going to appreciate the rather random results they might get. But people really liked the example pieces (and later the pieces I was painting!), found it unique and rewarding to see complete paintings from their prompts. At the last moment, I added the option for do-overs: if someone sponsored a painting and didn't like it, they could get one do-over, and if that still didn't work for them, they could choose something from the available pieces. I ended up doing two pieces over by request, and several by my own need to do better. Several people liked their paintings enough to increase their sponsorship to the level that got them the tangible original.

Prompting early. I'm not sure if this actually got people to donate or not, but lots of people left early prompts when they did! I've added this as a perk at Torn World; allowing supporters to email me their prompts for Muse Fusion in advance. (Which, speaking of, is this weekend! Feel free to join us!)


The project had some definitely pluses for me:

Inexpensive. There wasn't a lot of outlay in expense for me - the ACEO originals are tiny and light, and will fit several to an envelope for a stamp. The tiny size means a little paint goes a long ways, and the canvas sheet itself is, if not cheap, not going to break the bank when I can get 9 to a sheet.

Simple. I won't call painting 'easy,' exactly, but it's a great deal less structured than sketching, and the fact that they were abstracts allowed a great deal of flexibility. I could power through 10 or 20 in an hour, clean up of the acrylics is a snap (compared to oils!) and they weren't nearly as draining as representational work is to create. (Indeed, it was very relaxing and almost meditative.) I did find it extremely useful to pre-coat all of my canvases with a base color a few days in advance, which made it go more quickly when I sat down to do the actual prompts - some of them got painted over in entirety, but some just required a little accent painting to bring the prompt out.

I'm not afraid of color! Color - paint in particular - has always been squishy, uncontrollable and out of my realm of comfort. I dread the commissions that want color, preferring to stick to safe, predictable graphite or ink. This, together with Sketch Fest, has given me the courage and comfort to feel like color isn't the terrifying prospect that it used to be. Even if I'd made no money at this, this point would have made it worth it.


What Didn't Work So Well

It was chaotic keeping track of things. I had a spreadsheet, which helped a LOT with keeping track of addresses and donations, but it was still tough finding which entry participants had left their prompts at to reply to, and sometimes their second prompts were in a completely different entry - or privately by email. If I were doing this regularly, I would probably build a webpage to manage the various prompts and icon requests for me, and ask for more of that information up front...

Time. I wasted a lot of time tracking people down that would have been better spent painting, and I think I could have wrapped up the project faster. It would have been more lively with quicker interaction, too - but I'm not sure how to speed up the scanning progress, given how slowly they dry. Maybe it will go faster in the winter when the woodstove is fired up and it's drier in here. :)

Drying space. Every surface of my work area was covered with tiny drying canvases at several points throughout the week, creating a sticky hazard area. Cat pawprints had to be brushed off of one of them twice...

Icons. These were more work than I was hoping. The animations were simple, but they were still somewhat time-consuming. I'll probably offer fewer of these at higher perk levels next time. I'm still brainstorming other goals to add for group milestones.


In short

A fun time was had. Enough money was made to improve the nursery greatly. Many paintings were painted. I even made some new friends!

I'd love to hear any thoughts you have on the project - suggestions for improvement or observations - and hope this recap gives you some ideas for your own crowdfunding. I don't intend to turn this into a regular event myself, but will probably re-visit it in the future periodically.