Crowd-sourcing site to fund arts projects

TOM HUNT

Arts projects struggling to get funding are turning to crowd sourcing in a bid to get their projects up and running.

The Arts Foundation is launching a new crowd-sourcing website to help artists source donations, which the donors are then able to use for tax kickbacks.

Crowd sourcing – generating private funding online – has already proven successful for Wellington film-maker Taika Waititi, who managed to distribute his breakout feature film Boy in the United States using it.

In the US, crowd-sourcing site kickstarter.com is expected to raise US$150 million ($184m) this year for arts projects – US$6m ($7.3m) more than federal government arts grants.

The Arts Foundation will today announce Boosted.org.nz, which will allow arts projects to be crowd sourced, with donations able to be deducted against tax.

"We expect to create literally thousands of philanthropists for the arts, albeit mostly at modest levels," Arts Foundation executive director Simon Bowden said.

"In the world of crowd funding every dollar counts. We believe that many donors who initially give small amounts to projects on Boosted will be able to give more in the future."

While he did not expect Boosted to surpass the $35.7m funding handed out by Creative NZ last year, he hoped annual donations would reach $3m early on.

Donations would be made to the Arts Foundation, a charitable trust, making them tax deductable.

Like Waititi, Wellington writer and film-maker Duncan Sarkies has launched an online crowd-sourcing project.

He launched a drive this week to raise $6980 to create a podcast, Uncle Bertie's Botanarium Episode I: Cheese Dreams in the Gravy Isles.

The project – co-created with illustrator Stephen Templer and musician Lawrence Arabia, with Jemaine Clement, Nigel Collins and Nic McGowan collaborating – is set in an alternative world with an aristocratic botanist in search of an elusive plant.

In less than 24 hours yesterday he had received pledges of $355, in amounts as little as $5.

For their money people can get back a range of things, from a $5-plus podcast to a $1500-plus dinner party with entertainment provided by the creators.

While Sarkies did not see the new Arts Foundation website or Pledgeme.co.nz, on which he launched his fundraising drive, replacing Creative NZ, he said they were an invaluable new tool.

"It's just a way to do it for all the people that fall outside the cracks of Creative NZ. I feel it empowers everybody in a way."

It would allow more "weird and wacky" projects to be made.

In the case of the Uncle Bertie's project it was hoped the podcast – for sale to donors now and once it was made – would set up a financial base so future projects would need neither crowd sourcing or government funding.

An illustrated book and movie is planned.

PRIVATE PLEDGES LAUNCH BOY IN US

Boy may have taken New Zealand by storm but it could not have hit the United States were it not for hundreds of private pledges.

Taika Waititi's film made close to $10 million at the New Zealand box office, making it the highest grossing New Zealand-themed movie.

For its US launch this year, Waititi raised the US$100,000 ($122,000) needed for distribution with the help of 1826 individual backers on kickstarter.com, 335 of whom contributed $100 or more.

"We couldn't have launched Boy in the US without the support of the many people that responded to our crowd funding campaign," Waititi said.

"It's a great way to raise funds for creative projects. The arts need all the support they can get, so it's great news that the Arts Foundation is building a purpose-built crowd funding site for New Zealand."

- © Fairfax NZ News