Art BaselCrowdfunding Initiative

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Name of platform Art Basel Crowdfunding Initiative

Geographical focus Basel (Switzerland), Miami Beach, Hong Kong

Active since 2014

Crowdfunding model Reward-based

Type of crowdfunding All or nothing

Cultural sector partner Art Basel

Platform partner Kickstarter

Platform website https://www.artbasel.com/

Executive summary

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Art Basel Crowdfunding Initiative waslaunched in partnership with the USplatform Kickstarter in order to catalysemuch needed support for outstandingnon-commercial art projects.

Project creators from non-commercialarts organisation worldwide preparecrowdfunding campaigns – in line withthe admission criteria of Kickstarter –and submit the application to Art Baselto be included in the Art Basel curatedpage on Kickstarter. If the Art Basel jurytakes a positive decision, the project ispromoted by Art Basel on Art Basel’scurated page, during art fairs (e. g. thecrowdfunding lab) and other mediachannels (articles, social media).

The initiative generates added value forproject holders in non-commercial artsby an enhanced global visibility for thearts endeavours as well as a widesupport by offering a range of servicesin order to professionalise thecrowdfunding campaigns and reach outto additional funds raised from thecrowd.

Art Basel benefits also from theinitiative in the sense of CorporateSocial Responsibility by branding itselfas a non-commercial art supporter.Supporting the entire art world ecology,furthermore sustains the art market inthe long term. It is expected that ArtBasel can also provide its audience ayear-round engagement with excitingprojects happening around the world.

During the first two years ofimplementation, the crowdfundingcampaigns on Kickstarter having benefitof the Art Basel label have reachedalmost US $ 1.4 million (€ 1.3 million).

Supporting crowdfunding for non-commercial art projects

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Art Basel Crowdfunding Initiative aims atcatalysing much needed support foroutstanding non-commercial artprojects. It was launched in 2014 inpartnership with Kickstarter. Projectholders create their campaign onKickstarter and submit then theirproposal to the jury of the Art BaselCrowdfunding Initiative. Art Baselrecruits potential project creators forcrowdfunding campaigns from their ownnetworks, and receives applicationsonline. If selected, the campaign is thenpromoted on the special sub-site of ArtBasel Crowdfunding Initiative on theKickstarter Crowdfunding platform. ArtBasel makes no financial contribution tothe projects. The projects are fullyfinanced from the support of the crowd.

The all or nothing model is applied. TheArt Basel Crowdfunding Manager states:“If the project doesn’t achieve its goal(the amount determined to make theproject happen) then the project can’thappen and the backers don’t seetangible results.” In addition, the non-profit organizations involved in the ArtBasel Crowdfunding Initiative requiresufficient financial support to be able tofully engage with the project as some ofthe projects are also presented duringArt Basel shows.

Rationale for the partnership

Art Basel’s main activities are in the artmarket. For more than 40 years Art Baselaims at connecting highest-qualitygalleries to collectors, institutions, andart lovers in their three annual fairs inBasel, Hong Kong and Miami Beach. Ithas also a strong curatorial perspective.

The Art Basel cooperation withKickstarter reflects the wish to supportnon-profit arts organisations – as animportant part of the art market eco-system. It was expected that partneringwith Kickstarter will allow a deeperengagement with non-profit artsorganizations and allow Art Basel toconnect its audience of peopleinterested in art to non-commercial artprojects around the world on an ongoingbasis outside of the three annual shows.The Art Basel Crowdfunding managerhighlights the main expectations asfollows: “Cooperating with acrowdfunding platform like Kickstarterenhances also the visibility of the artprojects to a wider audience andprovides – if the campaign is successful –the required financial support frombackers.”

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The Art Basel Crowdfunding Initiative canbe well-illustrated with the example of theproject “More is More”: The Wolfsonian, amuseum in Miami Beach, partnered withArt Basel Crowdfunding Initiative andKickstarter to crowdfund the project“More is More” – a contemporary textileand batik-inspired installation of theDutch artist Christie van der Haak at themuseum’s façade during Art Basel MiamiBeach/Miami Art Week 2016. The projectholder is a museum part of the FloridaInternational University Miami Beach. ArtBasel invited the Wolfsonian toparticipate in the Art Basel CrowdfundingInitiative. Based on a previouscooperation, the director of theWolfsonian agreed to launch acrowdfunding campaign. Thecrowdfunding project manager of theWolfsonian highlights the services of thepartners involved: “The services providedfrom Kickstarter were perfect, includingconference calls whenever needed. Ateam of Kickstarter came also to theopening of the “More is More”installation. The marketing support fromArt Basel was good, but for a firstcrowdfunding campaign the help of theplatform was more crucial.” According tothe director, the all or nothing modelhelped the Worlfsonian to make pressureon the backers when the deadline of thecrowdfunding campaign approached. Theproject was initiated in the context of anexhibition on Dutch design in theWolfsonian. The crowdfunding campaignstarted in autumn 2016 and ran for fiveweeks and fundraising was successfullyfinished in December 2016 during ArtBasel Miami Beach.

Added value of the initiative

Visibility: The initiative offers additionalvisibility and support for a wide range ofprojects including artists’ residencies,educational programs, publications, publicart projects—selected by an independentjury. The main goals of the Art BaselCrowdfunding Initiative are to supportthese organizations by sharing theirstories, generating contributions, andreaching out to new audiences.

Art Basel Crowdfunding Initiativespecifically targets projects from mid-highend non-profit organisations in the field ofvisual arts from around the world. Inaddition, less established arts initiativesare considered if they are very compellingand represent a local community.

Supporting services: Services for projectcreators are important for the Art BaselCrowdfunding Initiative and includesupport on how to best run crowdfundingcampaigns, networking and exchangebetween peers (e. g. during Art Baselexhibitions) as well as coaching from theArt Basel crowdfunding manager and fromthe Kickstarter experts. Access to publicgrants or the stock market is not providedby the initiative.

The Crowdfunding lab was a formatimplemented during Art Basel shows tobring the digital initiative to life for ArtBasel’s audience. Project holders ofongoing and successfully completedcrowdfunding campaigns were invited togather for exchange of experience and fornetworking. These events allowed also forpersonal access to potential backers.

Partnership model

Partnership set-up

The partnership was set-up in 2014,when Art Basel and Kickstarter mutuallydefined the initiative’s parameters andprocess. The initiative was motivated togenerate a win-win framework: The non-profit organizations could benefit fromwider promotion by the large networksof Art Basel and Kickstarter. Thecrowdfunding platform Kickstarter has –with this cooperation - the potential tooutreach to new organisations with high-quality art background. Kickstarter alsobenefits from their campaigns beingendorsed by Art Basel, thereby giving theindividual campaigns and the platformitself a better chance for success.

Also Art Basel benefits from the initiativein the sense of Corporate SocialResponsibility by branding itself as anon-commercial art supporter.Supporting the entire art world ecology,furthermore sustains the art market inthe long term. It is expected that ArtBasel can also provide its audience ayear-round engagement with excitingprojects happening around the world.The related investments are mainly ownresources like the crowdfundingmanager or promotional activities forthe non-profit arts organisations in theprogramme.

Art Basel decided to cooperate withKickstarter due to the considerable(global) outreach of this crowdfundingplatform. In addition, its reward-basedsystem focuses on creative projects witha strong emphasis on communitybuilding and sharing content. “Manyother platforms are more charity- orinvestors-oriented which is not in linewith the strategic objectives of the ArtBasel Crowdfunding Initiative to furtherhigh-quality arts initiatives in the non-profit field”, states the Art BaselCrowdfunding Manager.

Partnership organisation

The partnership involves Art Basel andKickstarter. Art Basel is owned by apublic company in Switzerland calledMcH. Kickstarter is an American public-benefit corporation based in Brooklyn,New York (United States). Their roles andactivities in the partnership can bedescribed as follows:

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Art Basel ensures that high-qualityart projects from non-profit artsorganisation are selected for ArtBasel’s curated page on Kickstarter(www.kickstarter.com/Pages/artbasel). For that purpose, a jury of threemembers decides on the onlineapplications received by Art Basel. Inaddition, an Art Basel crowdfundingmanager encourages interesting artorganisations to take part in the ArtBasel Crowdfunding Initiative,supports project creators withgeneral information on the initiative,coaches project creators selected bythe jury, and implementspromotional activities.

Kickstarter provides thecrowdfunding platform. Servicesfrom the crowdfunding platform forproject creators include coachingand training material.

In order to make the cooperation work,project creators from non-commercialarts organisation worldwide preparecrowdfunding campaigns – in line withthe admission criteria of Kickstarter –and submit the application to Art Baselto be included in the Art Basel curatedpage on Kickstarter. Kickstarter is anopen platform and any project creatorcan launch a campaign on Kickstarter.But if the jury takes a positive decision,the project is promoted by Art Basel onArt Basel’s curated page, during art fairs(e. g. the crowdfunding lab) and othermedia channels (articles, social media).

The partnership between Art Basel andKickstarter is based on contracts. Thesewere adapted in the course of thecooperation based on the requirementsof both partners involved during thepartnership duration (since 2014).Neither Art Basel nor Kickstarter providefunding to the non-commercial artsorganisations taking part in the initiative.The financial support is solely providedby the private backers in thecrowdfunding campaign. Art Baselinvests in the promotion and in thecoaching of the project creators (ArtBasel crowdfunding manager), butprovides no financial contribution.Project holders must pay the 5% fee toKickstarter, as all successful campaignson this crowdfunding platform. No feesneed to be paid to Art Basel. The criteriafor participation of non-commercial artsorganisations remained unchangedduring the implementation time.

From the point of view of a projectholder – the Wolfsonian crowdfundingmanager – the financial context wasexperienced as follows: The fundingsurpassed the target of thecrowdfunding project partly due to thefact that the Wolfsonian decided for acareful first approach and a rather lowfunding target, state the project holder.Additional support was not expectedfrom Art Basel and is also not foreseen inthe Art Basel Crowdfunding Initiative.However, potential additional funds fromArt Basel or any other institutions wouldper se be positive for a non-profit artsorganization like the Wolfsonian.

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Related to a potential financialcontribution of Art Basel to the projectspromoted by the Art Basel CrowdfundingInitiative on Kickstarter, the FinancialTimes raised already in 2014 thequestion, why Art Basel did not just givethe money directly to the non-profits?Marc Spiegler, director of Art Basel,justified this approach as follows: “Weare not picking the winners. We areputting projects on the broader artworld’s radar,” he insists. “While ArtBasel has donated in the past (…), wehave never given as much money as wasraised in these first two months of thecampaign.” The issue of financing non-profit arts and culture projects incombination with crowdfunding requiresa broader discussion for all initiativesaiming at partnering with privatepromoters or public authorities. How toensure that for example available meansfor sponsoring from privateorganisations or public cultural budgetsare not replaced with the support of thecrowd?

Finetuning the partnership overtime

Since the start of the initiative, thepartners needed to overcome severaldifficulties to make the initiativesuccessful:

From the perspective of theselection and promotion of goodand relevant creative arts projects,Art Basel and Kickstarter began theircooperation from different point ofviews. Art Basel’s definitions of anappropriate project were very broadat the beginning including literally allkinds of visual arts projects.Kickstarter had a more narrow visionof “ideal” projects with promisingperspectives to run a successfulcampaign on their platform.

The mobilization of non-profit-arts-organisations turned out to be moredifficult than expected. “In addition,also those organisationsparticipating do not always have therequired project managementcapacities and skills”, observed theArt Basel Crowdfunding manager.This statement is confirmed by theWolfsonian crowdfunding campaignfor the “More is More” project. Theymade the experience that running afirst crowdfunding campaign is veryhard work. The promotion materialwas revised several times and thevideo was shot twice. They state,that the timing was challenging dueto the fact that the project shouldrun during Art Basel Miami Beach.

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Being part of a universitycomplicates in addition all externalcooperation including crowdfundingcampaigns. Statements of thefinancial and legal department wereneeded. This requires addition timeand effort. The overall work loadwas very heavy and required fullyengaged staff from the projectholder. Potential backers needed tobe contacted several times. TheWolfsonian crowdfunding managerstates that “This was a full time jobduring the period when thecampaign was open!”

From the potential backer side, ArtBasel experienced that specialmarketing efforts were needed toreach out to the Art Basel audiencewho are used to digital interactionbut not necessarily comfortable withdigital engagement of this kind. TheArt Basel Crowdfunding Initiativewas the first digital initiative outsidethe physical shows.

Several adaptations were needed in thecourse of the partnershipimplementation:

The partnership had to be adaptedin the field of coaching. Theapproach to have separate strandsof Art Basel Crowdfunding coachingand a Kickstarter support teamrevealed to be too complex.Currently, coaching activities areorganized in a manner to providecommon and coordinated supportfrom Art Basel and Kickstartertogether to project creators.

Separate outreach activities fromKickstarter on the one hand and ArtBasel on the other hand didn’tgenerate the desired results.Kickstarter is much broader involvingall kinds of creative and artsprojects. The requirements of ArtBasel are different. In order to avoidconfusion, recruiting of potentialprojects is now organized together ina coherent manner.

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Impact

Impact on the uptake of crowdfunding

Art Basel cannot provide detailedimpact information as the promotedproject creators remain fullyindependent regarding theircommunication, rewards orimplementation and as no evaluation ofthe initiative has been commissioned sofar.

The crowdfunding campaigns onKickstarter having benefit of the ArtBasel label have reached a total ofUS $ 1.39 million (€ 1.31 million) by2016. The budget of the campaigns isvery different. Smaller campaigns startwith a target of e. g. US $ 5.000(€ 4.700), larger ones reach up toUS $ 80.000 (€ 75.600). The project“More is More” from the Wolfsonian inMiami Beach for example had a fundingtarget of $ 7.500 (€ 7.055). By the endof the campaign a total of $ 8.726(€ 8.208) was raised. 93 backerscontributed with an average amount of$ 93 (€ 87).

The geographical coverage of the ArtBasel Crowdfunding Initiative isworldwide. Many campaigns from theUS and from Asia were successful todate. The success in the United Statescan be explained by the fact that a lot ofnon-profit organisations in the visual

arts with sufficient capacities (staff,public and private support as well asappropriate time to spend oncrowdfunding campaigns) are based inthe US or in New York. The geographicalreach of the initiative reflects also thecurrent situation in the art market aswell as countries in which Art Basel isvery well represented.

In addition, the institution Art Baselitself became very familiar withcrowdfunding by means of thisinitiative.

Impact on the project holders

The Art Basel Crowdfunding Initiativestrongly supports the communicationefforts of the crowdfunding campaignsit endorses. It is expected that the ArtBasel endorsement is a good touchpoint in the communication scheduleand outreach of a campaign, whether intraditional media or social media. ArtBasel mobilizes also their own VIPnetwork to promote campaigns. It canbe assumed that there is potential for athen wider reach to networks of artsfocused people.

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The crowdfunding manager of theWolfsonian confirms that the promotionof Kickstarter and Art Basel were mosthelpful. The project holder reached outto artist audiences, social media andexisting networks. The Kickstarter teamwas excited by the “More is More”project which further helped thepromotion. “The quality label of ArtBasel Crowdfunding initiative hadcertainly a leverage effect”, he states.

Impact on the backers

The project creators – the non-commercial arts organisations – remainthe owners of the campaigns. Art Baselhas therefore no information on theprofile and the behavior of the backersexcept for the overall total dollarspledged and how many backers backedthe project.

As one example case, the crowdfundingcampaign of the the Wolfsonian reachedout to the following backers: The mainbackers were in the category “family,friends, colleagues”. The projectmanager expects that 80% of the 93backers were from that category ormotivated to support the campaign by apersonal email of the director of theWolfsonian. It is also expected that formost of them, the campaign for the“More is More” project was their firstexperience with crowdfunding and withKickstarter.

By this means, the crowdfunding projectof the Wolfsonian generated interestingsynergies with potential for sustainableeffects (e. g. first time backers couldreturn to Kickstarter to support alsoother campaigns), hopes thecrowdfunding manager. Arts investorsdid not participate in this crowdfundingcampaign.

Impact on the partners

Impact on platforms

No information has been provided tothis question.

Impact on other types of financiers

There is no cooperation with other typesof financiers.

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Key considerations

Success factors of the partnership

The Art Basel Crowdfunding managerstates the following main successfactors: “The involved partners must bewilling to cooperate, to compromise andto work professionally together.Important is the definition of commongoals and Key Performance Indicators(KPIs) from the beginning of apartnership.”

Lessons learned for projectcreators

For the crowdfunding manager of thecampaign for the project “More is More”from the Wolfsonian, the mostimportant lesson learnt is that acrowdfunding campaign needs fullcommitment, sufficient time andconsiderable engagement of the staff(time-wise, motivation). The projectmanager hopes that a second campaignmight be easier after this firstexperience. If a new crowdfundingcampaign would be launched thenprobably for a large-scale public projectfor which a lot of people might getenthusiastic. Currently no newcrowdfunding campaign is planned bythe Wolfsonian team.

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Case study author: Sylvia Amann, inforelais

Layout: Jessie Pieters, IDEA Consult

Photos: Miami2you/ Shutterstock

This case study is part ofthe EU funded projectCrowdfunding4Culture.

Project partners:

Do you have questions after reading this case study? Contact our Crowdfunding4Culture project coordinator: Isabelle De Voldere (IDEA Consult), isabelle.devoldere@ideaconsult.be

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