Artistic Fundraising Campaigns: A Good Cause?

This topic was brought up on a friends Facebook page the other day and there were some interesting comments. There are a few of these fund raising websites out there now, the first I'd heard of was Kickstarter, there's Indiegogo, Crowdfunder, and Gofundme. They're not just for artistic causes, they can pretty much be used for anything, but since I'm a writer, mostly what I've seen them for are the arts.

I think I've mentioned here on my blog that I recently started my own Indiegogo campaign to fund my Indie publishing project, Dissected. I've kept my requests to my own social network pages, here on my blog, one email to my closest family and friends, and I did send one email out to a handful of book bloggers who have been my biggest supporters. I told them if they cannot contribute and if they feel comfortable spreading the word (not everyone is comfortable asking others for money, and I totally get that, hell, I had to talk myself into doing the campaign at all), I would appreciate it. I'm not asking for much either. I really doesn't take that much to Indie publish a book, but it takes a little. Ya know? In a nutshell, I've tried to be as tactful as possible.

Apparently a lot of my friends have been bombarded lately with a lot of these requests. Personally, I have only received one invite to an "event" on Facebook from another writer, and received a direct message on facebook from an old friend from high school for a cd release (it's how I decided to try indiegogo). I felt these were appropriate ways to do this. For the event, I could either join or decline. I could remove it from my facebook. No biggee. For the friend, we've known each other for 20ish *cough* years, we're both in the arts (he's an actor and film maker as well) so I was happy to help and spread the word for him, but I suppose if people posted their own things to my page without asking, or I continued to be bombarded in my inboxes, I might start getting a bad vibe from these types of fund raising sites.

As a whole, I think, if used tactfully, this is a great way for people to raise money for anything they might need it for, from anyone willing to help.

On the thread on Facebook I spoke about at the beginning, it was brought up that people should be giving their money to more worthy causes, cancer research or feeding the hungry and such. Well, here's my take on it. I give to my local children's hospital every year. Just because I give my old high school friend $25, doesn't mean I'm not going to still give to them. I don't think people would choose between the two. If you have to choose, follow your heart.

Just because you're my friend, even if you're my best friend, doesn't mean I EXPECT you to contribute to my campaign. And I'm not going to be mad if you don't. There are more worthy places to spend your money if you have the extra money to spend at all.  And there are people out there who make it a point to support the arts.

So, what is your take on the fund raising websites that have popped up? Good? Bad? Tacky? Awesome?

Donate image courtesy of Stuart Miles/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Email image courtesy of Patchareeya99/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net