21 Mar 2014
The Arts Foundation’s crowd funding website Boosted has raised more than $325,000 for New Zealand arts projects in its first year.
“Boosted is close to doubling the amount of private support that the Arts Foundation is able provide to the arts. We’re incredibly proud of this achievement,” said Boosted Manager, Mark Michel.
In addition to the funds raised through Boosted, each year the Arts Foundation gives $400,000 to individual artists through its annual Arts Awards.
Boosted projects have ranged from the $180 needed for a music project at Kahurangi primary school, to $25,000 for Populate! which helped to put art into Christchurch while work is being done to the Christchurch Art Gallery.
All Boosted projects are endorsed by the Arts Foundation and more than 60% reach their target. “Donor confidence is high and their feedback has been very positive,” said Mark.
One anonymous donor ‘Angel’ has replaced family gifts with donations to arts projects, for example ‘this weekend is our son's birthday so he's first to choose a project’.
“To date our generous Angel has contributed to eight projects, especially young talent and projects from the more secluded regions of New Zealand,” said Mark.
The Arts Foundation was established by Creative New Zealand in 1998 to increase private donations to the arts. Boosted has extended the foundation’s focus from supporting individual artists to a wider range of arts projects.
Enjoy Gallery successfully used Boosted to fundraise for a computer for the Gallery and also found new supporters.
“Enjoy receives funding for our core business from Creative New Zealand, but we were interested to try crowdfunding for an item of capital expenditure,” said Chair of the Enjoy Gallery Trust, Ann Shelton.
“It was exciting to see how quickly our community got around us to support the project. As well as the computer we were able to fundraise for an upgrade to our editing software, so our publications are better too.”
An added benefit was the exposure the gallery received via the Boosted website. "Some new people also got involved and are now following our exhibition programme,” said Ann.
All those using Boosted can get one-to-one support from the Boosted team to help them develop their campaign.
For more information go to boosted.org.nz
CATEGORIES: Capability building, Funding for organisations, Funding for individuals Latest news and blog
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