Do Not Crowdfund Right Now (and what to do instead)
This goes against my own self-interest as a crowdfunding consultant, but it must be said: under very, very few circumstances should you be launching and running crowdfunding campaigns the final 2 ½ months of the calendar year. That means pretty much as soon as October hits, tuck away your campaign until after the fireworks do their thing on New Years Eve.
Why not? I need the money!
Don’t we all, friend. Don’t we all.
Here’s the thing, though. Successful crowdfunding relies on two components:
- People’s attention
- People’s disposable income
When do people have the least amount of both of the above components? The holidays.
They’re away from their desks, computers, and phones because they’re traveling or they’re spending time with friends and family.
They’re spending their money on gifts for the various gift-giving holidays, food to bring to various feast-focused holidays, and travel to get to all those mentioned holidays. They may also have money earmarked for charitable contributions.
Ooo, wait- charitable contributions! What if I’m fiscally sponsored?
Congrats! Fiscal sponsors can often be a powerful partner to your fundraising process, if you go into it with your eyes open.
We’ll come back to fiscal sponsored projects in a minute, but I do just want to clear something up really quickly: no one is going to consider your film— even a social-justice-oriented documentary with a fiscal sponsor — a charitable contribution. When someone has money earmarked for a holiday charity fundraiser, an independent film, no matter how worthy, is not part of that calculus. It’s the same reason I don’t recommend crowdfunding for a creative project on a platform like GoFundMe- the psychology of why someone gives to a charity, or a GoFundMe campaign, is completely different from the psychology of someone who gives to a creative crowdfunding campaign.
Are you sure?
Yes.
But-
Listen. I’ve helped hundreds of filmmakers raise millions of dollars, and also watched hundreds of filmmakers crowdfund year-round. While there are always exceptions and special circumstances, why make fundraising, an already complex and difficult process, harder on yourself?
Also, this is not tax advice because I am not an accountant or tax specialist, but… because crowdfunding payouts are considered income by the government and are thusly taxed as such, I have heard that it can be problematic to raise money in a different year than you spend it, because one year you’ll be reporting a surplus and the next year you’ll be reporting a defecit. Talk to an accountant, please!
Ugh. Fine. So what do I do instead?
I’m so glad you asked in a non-sarcastic tone! We’re all friends here, aren’t we?
Get that pre-production done
My standard advice is spending at least two months doing pre-production for your crowdfunding campaign. That link will give you a full itinerary for how to portion out that time. Don’t rush your campaign materials, but especially don’t rush your outreach plan and building your email list to go along with it. The more time you have to get your ducks in a row, the better!
Build up your outreach/marketing queue
Extra time before launching means you have extra time to develop a deep well of unique content themes you can use for marketing, reminding people you’ve sent them an email (historically the best use of social media during an active campaign), and audience building.
Plan and host an event
Whether in person or virtually, an event is a great way to gauge the interest of your audience in what you’re working on, collect emails to add to your email list, and partner with like-minded artists and organizations to consolidate fans into a single moment. Here’s an old series of posts I did for Seed&Spark about event ideas for crowdfunders, but you don’t have to be actively crowdfunding to benefit from an event. If you wanted to find a way to get a bit of fundraising in under the wire, though, you could always pair an event with a silent auction or charge a ticket price for a more curated session like a panel, concert, dinner party, or showcase.
The email RSVP (or a sign up sheet at a physical event) is important, though- capture people’s information so you can follow up with them when you do begin crowdfunding!
Launch a newsletter
Whether it’s a production newsletter because there’s already interest from folks in what you specifically are working on, or a thematically-aligned newsletter (think a romance author running a romance recommendation & author interview newsletter, for a totally random example), having a bit of time to launch and get a few posts into the world of a newsletter is perfect timing during Q4. You’re building your email list, getting used to regularly sharing things with an audience, getting them used to opening your emails in return, learning what their priorities are in messaging and content, and building a backlog of content you can repurpose later for social content.
Create and send out a survey
I’ll probably do a full post about this someday, but to summarize what I will eventually expand on:
A survey is a great way to quickly gather data and insights about a topic relevant to your film/filmmaking, get past the moderators of special interest communities on Reddit who (correctly) don’t just let people self promote then bounce, and gather emails! A simple Google Form with a required email field will do, and you can use this info to personalize later email outreach as well as make content on your various channels with the insights shared by respondents. Just make sure you put somewhere on the form that by giving their email, you won’t spam them but they do give you permission to reach out in the future about projects relevant to the topic of the survey. I made a survey back in 2020 about asexual representation in film that got 300+ responses in two weeks, for example!
Break down your script and build up your wish list
If your family or friend group celebrate a gift-giving holiday over the next few months, why not defray some budget/crowdfunding goal costs and ask for the items themselves and not the money you need for them? If you know you need to buy certain props or wardrobe or equipment (or even access to space, like a hotel room or Airbnb rental) for your eventual film project, put them on your wish list instead!
Fiscal sponsored projects: go direct
From my previously linked article about fiscal sponsorship:
The most commonly contributed crowdfunding pledge is around $25, and the average pledge is about $100. Most people aren’t going to deduct that from their taxes, even if they have all the paperwork in place, because for most people, it won’t make a statistically significant difference.
According to the Tax Policy Center, “high-income taxpayers are much more likely to itemize than others…In tax year 2020, 10 percent of taxpayers chose to itemize.”
The majority of your supporters probably don’t care if you’re fiscally sponsored, and the fact of it won’t factor into their decision to give or not at all. However, if you are in a situation where there are a handful of people you know or can connect with who are in that coveted 10% of taxpayers who itemize their taxes and might be looking for a place to make a tax deductible contribution… this is a good time to go to them directly. These kinds of folks often won’t want to contribute on a public campaign anyways, especially if they want to write a check or go straight through your fiscal sponsor. So use this time to woo them, specifically, at the end of their taxed spending period, and then adjust your eventual crowdfunding goal accordingly in the new year.
In conclusion… set yourself up for success, and press pause until the new year
If there’s absolutely no way around fundraising in these final two months, just be super targeted about your outreach, prioritize getting to people in person when possible since they’re likely more offline, and be absolutely certain that the goal you’re setting is your minimum viable dollar amount, rather than your ideal pie-in-the-sky budget.
These next few months can absolutely still be productive and fruitful for your creative project… but perhaps not your wallet.
Bri Castellini is an independent filmmaker, a romance author, and, regrettably, a podcaster. She’s known for the 2017 short film Ace and Anxious (writer/director, 165k+ views on YouTube) and for her podcasts Burn, Noticed and Breaking Out of Breaking In, covering the USA television show Burn Notice and practical filmmaking advice, respectively. She can lick her elbow (not clickbait). Full work history and ways to hire her as a consultant can be found on her website BriCastellini.com
