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Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

No Other Word For It: Fundraising Failure

The Phillips Collection crowdsourcing effort, an attempt to raise $45,000 in a month to support a website abut Jacob Lawrence, has failed miserably. When the drive ended on Dec. 10, only $2,988–a mere 7 percent of the goal–had been pledged. And that took 41 supporters, for an average contribution of about $73.

logo_color_lockedupAll of the background is here, in my previous post on the subject.

Why would this campaign fail? I can think of several possibilities, or a combination of some of them:

–Not enough visibility for the campaign. I checked the Phillips’s Facebook page and saw just three posts about the campaign. Now, I’m guessing there were emails to supporters, perhaps a little local press, maybe some Tweets? Whatever it was, it was likely not enough.

–An over-ambitious goal. Raising $45,000 in a month from the grass roots is hard and time. Raising it for a future website, which can’t/won’t be seen for months, is harder. And there was some skepticism about the full, $125,000 cost of the website–why so much?

–An artist whose name isn’t that well known in the public. Sad, but true.

–In the visual arts, crowdfunding is less than it’s cracked up to be, most of the time. Previously, we know that the Hirshhorn failed in its attempt to crowdfund an Ai Weiwei work: it raised $555 of a $35,000 goal. The Freer-Sackler tried it for its Yoga exhibition, but few of the links then in use work now. This one does work–it shows support from 616 donors, but no total donated. This article, however, says the Freer-Sackler raised $174,000 for the show, including $70,000 from Whole Foods.

Yoga has a vast following, though, and I’ll bet the Whole Foods connection helped, too.

I’m thinking that crowdfunding is a gimmick, and one that, most of the time, requires another gimmick to make it work.

That’s the new Phillips logo above, btw. I think I like it.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Phillips Collection 

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About Judith H. Dobrzynski

Now an independent journalist, I've worked as a reporter in the culture and business sections of The New York Times, and been the editor of the Sunday business section and deputy business editor there as well as a senior editor of Business Week and the managing editor of CNBC, the cable TV

About Real Clear Arts

This blog is about culture in America as seen through my lens, which is informed and colored by years of reporting not only on the arts and humanities, but also on business, philanthropy, science, government and other subjects. I may break news, but more likely I will comment, provide

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