1) Find your crowd
Find out who your core audience is. Do your research into all the relevant individuals, groups and organisations who care about your project. Get in touch and talk to as many people as possible. You need to build a groundswell of support and awareness far in advance of launching your campaign.
2) Choose your platform
There are a handful out there that will do the job. With Just Do It, we built our own, on our site. But there are others already set up that will do lots of the legwork for you.
BUT – make sure you do your research, again. For example, Indiegogo allows you to receive all donations, whether or not you hit or target. Where Kickstarter is an all or nothing job. There are pros and cons on both sides, but it’s important to look at the implications of each and every one of them so you can make an informed decision.
3) Choose a realistic target
Look at your budget and evaluate how much you need to make the project possible. Then look at how much support you’ve managed to muster in your preliminary outreach and how much potential reach there is for the subject of your project. Taking all of this into account, set yourself a target that both stretches you but looks achievable.
4) Perky perks
Perks are surprisingly important. Think about what in your project could be transformed into either physical merchandise or a personal and invaluable experience that people will want to donate for. For example, the most popular perk with Just Do It was the advanced download of the film – people wanted to see it, and to own it, but not necessarily have more “stuff” – it ticked all the boxes.
5) Be prepared to work hard
Crowd funding is really, really hard work. Make sure you believe in your project enough that you’re prepared to spend every waking (and sleeping!) moment talking to people about it and convincing others that it needs to happen.
5.5) Stay positive!
Stay positive – crowd funding has the power to make projects that struggle to find funding elsewhere happen. But most importantly, crowd funding builds a crowd and it builds a community. We’ve had an amazing amount of non-financial support from the community that we created thanks to our crowd funding campaign.
Got questions?
Email our producer Laura at [email protected]
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Long-time Just Do It friend and fellow journalist troublemaker Leah Borromeo is making a film about cotton. Not Dot, but the 300,000 Indian farmers who have committed suicide in the making of our t-shirts. Leah is setting out to investigate why, and – more importantly – what can be done to stop it. And our director Emily James is Executive Producing to boot.But this supremely important film won’t get made unless we all pitch in to make it happen.
There are just THREE days LEFT on their crowdfunding campaign, with just under £4,000 to go until they hit their target. And, every pound donated now, will unlock another £3 for the film. So dig deep, give what you can, and help Leah and the Dirty White Gold team answer the question: “When you bag a bargain, who pays for it?”
Go on, we have.
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Theatre Uncut presents a week of action this 13th-17th November at the Young Vic, with short plays and discussion to galvanise debate and positive action.
We’re honoured that Just Do It director Emily James will be taking part in the discussion after the evening’s performances on Saturday 17th November, and hope you’ll join us there.
For more information on the entire week’s events, and to get your tickets, click HERE.
What? Theatre Uncut
Where? Young Vic Theatre
When? Saturday 17th November, 7:30pm
As we speak, Just Do It director Emily James is on her merry way to Toronto, Canada for the first in our flurry of North American screenings over the next two weeks.First stop: Planet in Focus Film Festival and our Toronto Premiere on 11th October! CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS
16th October – University of Chicago – watch this space for details
19th October – NYU – CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS
24th October – Vermont International Film Festival, Burlington – CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS
25th October – Boston College, Boston – CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS
Keep your eyes peeled for photos and updates from the road! Go Emily go!
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If you missed Emily James and Marina Pepper talking just doing it and the importance of a good cup of tea on BBC Breakfast yesterday, never fear. You can watch it again here:
Emily and Marina appeared on BBC Breakfast in July 2011.
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