Social media fundraising

Crowdfunding and social media are the buzz words in fundraising circles, no doubt due in part to the funding situation that the arts currently find themselves in. And it’s encouraging that organisations, rather than turning up their toes, are looking at new, creative and innovative ways to raise funds.

At the end of January, WeDidThis launched with the aim of enabling arts organisations to fundraise for specific projects. It follows the launch at the end of last year of WeFund and the predecessor of them both, the US based Kickstarter. These sites encourage organisations to raise funding for specific projects. In return the donors themselves receive a reward for every successful campaign, which might be tickets to a performance or an invitation to an exhibition opening. What really focuses the mind of the organisation (and its fundraiser) is that the donors receive a refund if the campaign doesn’t meet its target. How’s that for incentivising the fundraising team to deliver?

I often work with small arts organisations which don’t have the resources to run traditional ‘friends schemes’. And, in some cases these traditional programmes don’t provide a good ‘fit’ with their brand. This new approach to fundraising will provide a channel for smaller, innovative organisations to raise many smaller gifts without having to commit too many resources. The fact that WeDidThis, WeFund and Kickstarter promote fundraising for specific projects also helps donors to connect directly with the work an organisation is doing.

This is a positive step forward. By engaging with people and making them feel they have a tangible connection, they understand your organisation better and, crucially, are more likely to support it in the future. Obviously, with the focus on project fundraising, this type of funding won’t help raise unrestricted income (which is often the beauty of friends programmes) and which is invaluable, particularly as many of the gaps left by statutory funding cuts are mainly core costs, not traditionally an area donors support. However, that doesn’t mean that this type of fundraising isn’t worth it. Crowdfunding gives organisations a new way to promote themselves to a new, typically younger donor and, with a creative and innovative approach, it links directly to what many smaller arts organisations are doing.

This is the key difference between these crowdfunding sites and more traditional ‘small gifts to many donors’ approaches. Crowfunding means that donors are encouraged to become proactively engaged with the projects they are fundraising for. This is an approach that has been on the increase during my 15 years as a fundraiser. It started with wealthy philanthropists, particularly entrepreneurs who were self made and saw their donation as an investment that they had an interest in, and it has trickled down into all forms of fundraising.

With an increasing emphasis on fundraising – particularly in light of recent and future cuts in statutory income, crowdfunding is definitely an area that some, if not all, arts organisations will consider, particularly as it provides another way to engage with donors and build donations in a low resource intensive and cost effective way. And this is the beauty of crowdfunding. Not only are donors proactive but organisations don’t have to invest much to see success – either in terms of time or money – and the fact that it is a low resource investment should mean that it won’t detract from other fundraising efforts either.

Low resource, low cost, engaging new audiences, creative, innovative – it will be interesting to see how social media fundraising develops and who capitalises on it successfully. At the moment at least, it definitely looks set to change the way organisations fundraise in the future and, in particular, engage with individual donors.