Kickstarter: A Success Story

Besides exhibiting at art fairs in the Midwest and Florida, I have exhibited at ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, Michigan for the past four years. I love this event. It brings tons of art-loving people into Grand Rapids every fall to see the work of 1800 artist in 200 different locations around the city. It turns the city into a huge art gallery. There are two top prizes this year. $200,000 awarded to one artist by popular vote, and $200,000 awarded by a committee of art experts. There are also many other awards. Anyway, big is usually better for this competition, but big is also, usually, more expensive as well. My daughter, who is a video producer, helped a friend fund the publication of a children's book using Kickstarter, and she suggested that I consider Kickstarter as a way to finance a BIG entry into ArtPrize. Her friend raised $20,000. Wow, I thought, maybe this is a good idea.

I started investigating Kickstarter and learned that this website is a conduit for raising money for creative projects through "crowd-funding." The idea is for lots and lots of people to give small amounts of money in support of projects they think are interesting and worthwhile. I also learned (and this is a key concept) that a typical Kickstarter campaign does not ask for handouts or charity. The idea is for supporters to receive rewards for their help that can be as valuable (or more valuable) than the amount of money pledged. I also learned that a Kickstarter project only gets funded if the fund-raising goal is met or exceeded. Kickstarter projects are never partially funded.

The entry I had in mind for ArtPrize is a 20-foot tall version of a digital painting called "Outhouse Island." After pouring over the Kickstarter website, which is very helpful and easy to navigate, I determined that I needed to raise $5000 to create my 20-foot picture. This budget includes $3500 to create the picture, and another $1500 to fulfill my promise of "awards" for people who help my campaign. In my Kickstarter application, I created a description of the project, uploaded a video (which my daughter helped me create) and established a list of 11 "awards" for different dollar amounts which included a thank you card with an image from my ArtPrize entry, a t-shirt with the same image, and an assortment of limited edition prints from my digital paintings. After a quick review by the Kickstarter people, my 30-day campaign went online and my work had only just begun.

I got lots of advice from other Kickstarter successes, but the most important advice was to be persistent in my appeals for help. I'm sure there were many people out there who were annoyed by my persistent pleas for help. But there were a lot more that were intrigued by my project, and became cheerleaders for my campaign. I used the extensive email list of people who have purchased my work over the years, as well as email lists of friends and neighbors. I pointed out that by helping in this campaign they could add to their collections of my work at lower than retail prices. In retrospect, I now realize that I overused these lists. During the month I sent them four messages. I did get lots of supporters through these efforts, but I also got lots of people who opted off of my lists.

I used this blog to promote my campaign, as well as a few other blogs that relate to my subject and my medium. I received three pledges directly from Artfairinsiders, and some valuable advice from Connie and others with experience mounting Kickstarter campaigns. My best source of pledges came from Facebook. I posted appeals and updates every day either on my personal Facebook page or my business (LebenArt) Facebook page. I encouraged all my Facebook friends to share my posts and wound up reaching thousands of people with information about my crazy outhouse project.

Pledges trickled in at first. After two weeks I was only about 1/3 of the way toward reaching my goal of $5000. I began rationalizing the limited success of my campaign. I thought, even if I don't reach my goal, I can contact the people who pledged and offer to sell them the "awards" they specified. At least I would make some sales through Kickstarter. Then, I doubled my efforts. I added some creative awards that I hoped would attract more backers. I began investing in the "boost" function on my business Facebook page. I encouraged everyone to share my posts more vigorously. One key lesson I learned a couple weeks into the campaign, was that some people, who might want to support my project, were shy about Kickstarter's method of collecting funds. To make a pledge on Kickstarter, you have to establish an "Amazon Payments" account. Your pledge goes into "escrow" until the campaign is over and the goal is reached. If the goal is not reached the funds go right back to you. If the goal is reached Amazon Payments withdraws the money from a credit card you have on file with them. I learned that some people didn't want to put a credit card on file with Amazon. My solution was to accept pledges by check from those shy people and add their pledges to my campaign through a third party (my wife, Marcia). Several people took advantage of this option.

During the third week, pledges started coming in more frequently. And a good many of them were from people I didn't even know. The fourth week continued to see lots of pledges with two coming all the way from Australia, and one coming from Paris. I reached my goal with four or five days to go, but pledges continued to come in. With my Kickstarter iPhone app, I spent a lot of time checking my phone to see who was pledging next. It was exciting and exhilarating to open the phone and see two or three new pledges coming in. Even after the campaign officially ended I got direct calls from a few people who wanted to pledge. When the dust finally settled I had raised $5908 from 93 different people. I was blown away and humbled by all this support. People were genuinely inspired by my project and wanted to be a part of it. I called them my "Outhouse Islanders" and assured everyone that wanted to pledge that there was still plenty of room on the "island."

Kickstarter continues to be a great resource now that my campaign is over and successful. Through the Kickstarter website I sent out a survey to all my backers requesting pertinent information about the awards I would be sending them (specific artwork titles, t-shirt sizes, addresses, etc.). I am able to track each supporter's info online and also keep track of the awards I send out to each backer. Of course, now that the campaign is over, I'm a little overwhelmed by the task of creating and sending out all these awards to all 93 of my backers. It will be a lot of busy work, but, well worth the effort. I now have the money I need to create my ArtPrize entry (which makes my wife, Marcia very happy).

As of this writing, I've been invited to exhibit "Outhouse Island" at 50 Monroe Street (the building that houses the Huntington Bank that is right between the BOB and the Grand Rapids Art Museum). I'm still waiting to hear from a couple of other venues that I am interested in.

Kickstarter is probably not for everyone, but its a great way to finance a special project. To run a successful campaign takes a lot of work, and the funds you receive at the end are not free. Its not a charity. You have to offer some value in the form of awards for the pledges you receive. And the more value and the more appealing your awards are, the more chance you have for success.

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  • Congratulations on your successful efforts, John. And thanks for the update and great story. I look forward to hearing how the project pans out for you. WOOHOO!

  • This is very exciting, John. Thanks for the rundown. I hope you get a spot at the De Vos Place. I'd love to see this hanging somewhere where people can step back and get a good look at it.

    The business about asking and asking again, I've learned that one. This is pledge drive time for this website (and thanks for your pledge) and every day I do some promo either here, in our Constant Contact emails, on our FB pages, in a blog post, in a discussion, podcasts coming up ... I got over being shy about it. People can delete. They can read and respond. They can think about it and maybe the next time they see it they'll respond. I worked for someone who, when something else wasn't taking up his time, he did what he called "dialing for dollars." He'd call and ask. Call and ask. 

    I was brought up so that when someone said No, or they ignored you, you politely didn't ask again. Not so anymore. There is so much noise out there you have to see if you can get yourself heard.

    People will ask me questions about the shows and why don't you do such and such? and I can usually say: did you see the blog post, did you read the email, did you listen to the podcast? Did you see the video?

    Of course today, after I sent out an email to nearly 50,000 people, our (and 1000's of other folks) websites are down. What I hoped would be lots of those great "pings" from PayPal on my phone (don't you love that?) there is silence. What you going to do? 

    It isn't all about making the art, it is the marketing. A new lesson learned by you and all the other folks who have used Kickstart to fund their projects. Sue Lukas, on this site, also got hers funded at the same time. 

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