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Crowdfunding acquisitions

Gina Fairley, Crowdfunding acquisitions: the next fundraising trend, ArtsHub, 4 June 2015

Our museums use social media to stimulate audiences, so why not use technology’s reach to grow their collections?

Institutions have always “crowdfunded” acquisitions in that a well-heeled known set of supporters willing to open their wallets when asked by the director have created a public source of revenue for buying new works.

But today crowdfunding is allowing public galleries and museums to massively broaden that support, tapping a new source of revenue for particularly appealing projects.

Let’s be clear on definitions here. “Crowdfunding” has a very specific contemporary definition: a campaign run online for a finite period of time to raise a targeted amount with incremental “rewards” for giving. They are high demand, semi-personal and, despite largely being successful, can be an enormous drain on a small organisation.

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