Why I Don't Donate to Crowdfunded Projects.

These days, it's nearly impossible to be on social media - nay, to have friends - without being asked for money.

And because I work in the arts, and have many professional and personal contacts who are creators of art - film, theatre, music, and beyond - I get donation requests an average of once a week, sometimes more.

This, of course, has been intensely accelerated by the phemonenon of crowdsourced fundraising.  Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, and similar platforms virtually encourage people to request money from their entire extended network.

I have made it my policy not to fund any of these requests, and here's why:


In my personal life, I donate quite a bit compared to my peer group, or what I know of their charitable contributions.  I have a "giving" line item in my monthly budget, make donations, volunteer, and have given money to personal contacts in need.  I do none of these as often as I'd like, but it's a start.

When I do give money, my heart is moved in very specific areas: the starving, very poor, and homeless globally (I donate via Mercy Corps), emergencies (Mercy Corps or Red Cross), women in situations of domestic abuse (I produced the V-Day Brooklyn fundraiser for two years), a couple of past political campaigns, and those damn guilt-making WNYC pledge drives. 

While I do think every middle- to upper-class individual absolutely should donate money or at least time to a worthy cause, I do think *which* cause is intensely personal.  My priorities are usually the neediest, emergency cases, or as Maslow would put it:

My challenge is that I am often asked for donations by people in my professional-ish network.  The sheer number of requests - weekly and sometimes daily - makes it impossible for me to give a significant amount to all of them, and I don't care to pick and choose, so I've made it my professional policy to simply give to none of them.  (My personal policy is the same, but for the reasons explained above.)

As a creative artist in my early twenties, I spent hundreds of hours working for free - acting, writing, producing - making an artistic contribution, with no individual donation support. However, this was not charitable work, this was my career path, and so I never expected anyone to hand me money for it, other than pay for a ticket to a show.  Something for something.

So on some level, I do believe most professional artistic endeavors should pay for themselves -- and those that need individual donors should cultivate them intentionally (ie not via Facebook blast to everyone they've ever met, or in some cases, have never even met).  But I think that crowdfunding makes people lazy - why seek nonprofit status or cultivate individual donors or apply for grants when you can set up a webpage in less than an hour?  And entitled - the tone of these messages is often demanding and altogether off-pitch for a request of support.  And panicky - NOW I AM MESSAGING YOU FOR THE 4TH TIME IN AS MANY DAYS IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE I ONLY HAVE 24 HOURS TO RAISE $20K!!!! In other words, not strategic and not professional, so therefore, yes, on some level, not deserving. 

The very few times I have donated on behalf of a business contact, it's been in my business's public relations or business development interest. (This is basically how every single for-profit company that supports a charity works, so don't get all shocked.)  For example, I don't support the Susan G. Komen Foundation for various reasons, but a client whom I absolutely adore is a breast cancer survivor and organizes a walk through her company each year, so of course I donate to her team.* 

Then again, she wasn't asking me to fund her webseries or film or album.  That would make me a producer.  I suppose that's what bothers me about the simple "just donate!" plea.  A producer is offered a stake in the project; and to evaluate the opportunity, she gets to see the business plan, the financials, who is involved with the project, the project history, what the timeline is - in other words, the factors that determine whether the project is viable.  I've never seen an arts-based crowdfunding appeal do any of that.

Today, my business is not yet at the point where I can offer significant financial support to any charitable endeavor, let alone every one that asks; nor is it at the point where I can offer pro bono support on a case-by-case basis. I'm often asked for free help with no offer of exchange or professional reasoning other than "I need it," which poses several problems: 1) one of my central marketing/sales/career tenets is that the audience comes first, so never ask for something without explaining what's in it for the other party; 2) there is already a gross undervaluing of marketing and publicity strategy amongst small- to mid-sized producing artists/groups and it goes against my business's best interests to reinforce that; 3) I am on a mission to help artists become better businesspeople, and I don't care to reinforce bad planning or budgeting at the early stages of a project by giving money to it.

I wanted to write all of this out both to clarify it in my own mind, but also to know what to say next time someone whose work I truly believe in asks me for a donation.  I do have immense respect for those who are creative and inspired enough to take steps to make their vision a reality. Ideas are beautiful, but action is where it's at.  Still, part of that action is a long-term, deliberate fundraising plan that takes the entire production and potential audience into consideration.

Maybe eventually someone will take the time to craft a pitch so eloquent - and relevant to me - that I'll be moved to pull out my checkbook.  Or better, maybe I'll create a merit-based system for project funding that's part of my business model.  But until then, the simplest decision is for me to completely opt out of most donations involving my personal and professional network.