The world needs our vision. Seriously. For real. Make it happen. Now. Ok. Yeah. Now.Let’s face it. Everybody and their mother is now crowdfunding, asking from everything to getting people to fund their broken & decrepit laptops (ps I’ve had the same laptop since 2009 // NO SHADE!) to getting people to fund their community service trips abroad to getting people to fund revolutionary tech products (yesssss, automated future with no work).
So how do we stand out from the pack? We who are creating things that elevate human beings to new realms of consciousness, transcending the robotic shells of complacency.. Oh wait, this isn’t my daily sermon. Well, I can only share what I did that I believe made us stand out because tbh nothing always works. Then, life wouldn’t be interesting. These were some of my top strategies that weren’t really strategies at the time:
#1. I connected the campaign to “The Zeitgeist.” By that I mean, no matter what the project is, communicate how the campaign speaks to an issue currently that is at the top of everyone’s minds. It’s even better if the actual PROJECT is related to an issue that is at the top of everyone’s minds. That will make it powerful because people are already searching for their voices to be represented, to understand something newly, or just to bask in their own perspective 😆.
#2. I made the campaign for a particular group. By making the campaign for a particular group, you are making a message that to people in that group, which will seem like it was sent from heaven specifically for them. They will thank you for finally making something for them. The group should be pretty specific and the more specific the better. It is also worth noting that just because you make it for/about/with a particular group doesn’t mean that others won’t want to participate. Many many donors to Black Man in America were not Black. They still saw that the message was needed.
#3. I connected the campaign to WHO PEOPLE ARE. Related to the last one, people make a lot of decisions off of their identity – for example, are you speaking to education activists, new age meditators, waiters/artists, Marxist revolutionaries, pan-Africanists, Alabama basketball fans, 9-5 coders, parents of toddlers, cat addicts, ayuasca lovers, who? What matters is not the label society gives them (I.e, Black men and women in my project) but how they define themselves. In my project, I assumed the people who would give were people who were intent on making change in the world and did NOT identify as victims. When conversing with folks in the first phase of my campaign (learn about my four phases of crowdfunding) I found that friends and family were disheartened by the barrage of publicized killings but still identified with being change agents and powerful for their communities. It became evident that we wanted to “do for ourselves” and that we defined ourselves as protectors of our own community. In the campaign, I made sure I emphasized that we are change agents & our own protectors.
#4. I had a striking idea. This goes without saying but it is best that your idea is innovative conceptually or striking in whatever field it is. It does not need to be controversial but if it is a creation of yours or a team’s, it should be clear how this is new or diverges from the same old. In our campaign, we made our first title clear “Spread power, not fear for Black men in America” and had an image of five Black men dapping (*cough, it’s a Black handshake/ p.s. Just learned last year that dapping and pounding are indeed different 😆) and five Black men pointing guns at the audience. So visually, we had striking images and we also had a divergent concept – that we need to break free of the mainstream concept of fear and create power for our community.
want more ways to design a project that resonates with people and gets funded? get my step-by-step guide on how we raised $18K
To read my beastly step-by-step guide explaining how we crowdfunded $18K with no following or fanbase, click to view this awesomely detailed post I wrote 🙂
a little backstory
It was a chilly January 2018 day in the current dimension when 30-year-old unnecessarily educated Justina, queer artist child of black Panamanian immigrants, learned she had three months until her cushy job would let her go. Stunned that her comfortable safety net had broken, she stared at the email for 60 seconds before she resumed binge-watching Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee. Two weeks later, she had a nervous break down. BUT. Finally, she will play. She will create. And hopefully never work again. Oh, and now she has a journal. More on her/me here.
my money journal: crowdfunding edition
This, my money journal, is a reflection on my successes & failures to make money doing what I actually love. I want to share it with you cuz… I bet you’re on this journey too. In the first series of my money journal, I’m sharing my first big success as an artist. At the end of 2016, I was listening to my boyfriend’s song Black Man in America when a vision for a dance film struck me. Five Black men seated at a white table with guns. Don’t worry. It is nuanced. By January 2017, I was storyboarding. By June, my boyfriend was on board, we determined we needed $16,000 to bring it to life, and we launched our crowdfunding campaign. With no fan base and no real fundraising experience. On August 6th, we filmed. I was freaking out. I had opened a credit card just for this project, was $4,000 in debt and owed our cast and crew $7,000 more. I was all in. By August 20th, 400 backers had given a total of $18,000 for Black Man in America to come to life, exceeding our goal. In this crowdfunding series of my money journal, I’m going to share how we did it, because – imagine what you could do with $5K ,$10K, $20K to bring your visions to life. It’s our tiiiiiiiiime. (Shine bright, shine far…)
