7 Crowdfunding Websites for Film Projects

There are numerous Websites that provide a platform for creative people to raise funds for their projects. Some of them support a broad range of activities including business ideas and inventions; others are more focused, geared towards fashion designers or open source software ideas. In this little collection of crowdfunding websites you will find the ones popular among indie filmmakers and those who support them.
IndieGoGo was launched at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. It is one of the most popular crowdfunding solutions for filmmakers from all over the world. Since its inception it has hosted thousands of successful funding campaigns not only for film projects, but in areas such as music, theatre, fashion and education. Successful projects include for exampleThe Bully Project, a documentary directed by Sundance and Emmy-award winning filmmaker, Lee Hirsch, which got picked up and will be distributed by The Weinstein Company, or another documentary Love Hate Love, from Emmy award winning directors Dana Nachman and Don Hardy, which also premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Kickstarter is another online platform for funding creative projects. It has been a popular website used for funding a diverse array of endeavors, ranging from indie film and music to journalism and food projects for over 2 years. It uses Amazon Payments to process credit cards instead of PayPal, and you need a US bank account and address to start a project. One of the highest funded projects on the site is Blue Like Jazz (the movie) which raised $345,992 from 4495 backers, including over 1000 credited as Associate Producer.
Similar to IndieGoGo and Kickstarter, RocketHub is an online crowdfunding website for creative projects. It was launched in January 2010. Their sister site, Rockethub.org is an educational tool with useful crowdfunding tips and tactics, helping project owners (called Creatives) create successful campaigns.
For example producer/writer/director Darko Lungulov used Rockethub to bring Tribeca Film Festival Award Winning film Here and There to American art-house theaters.
Pozible is an Australian crowdsourcing platform that was formely known as FundBreak. It was developed for artists, musicians, filmmakers, journalists, designers, entrepreneurs, inventors, event organisers, software developers and other creative minded people. They also have a UK domain, most of the projects are Australian, some British.
Fansnextdoor is a European crowdfunding website founded by individuals coming from different countries like France, India and the Philippines. Creative projects include films, books, music and visual arts. Seemingly the only film project successfully funded as of today is La Répétition, a French short film which raised a little over €1500.
CineCrowd is a Dutch nonprofit crowdfunding platform. It features numerous projects by Dutch filmmakers including short films, animations, documentaries and experimental films. The whole site is in Dutch, so the target audience is smaller than in case of the other websites.
Startnext is a German crowdfunding platform. The language of the site is German, and projects include film, theatre, music etc. An example of a current projec is Iron Sky, a sci-fi comedy about the Nazis who set up a secret base on the moon in 1945 where they hide out and plan to return to power in 2018.in
JUNE 1, 2011

What is Crowdfunding?

According to Wikipedia,crowdfunding describes the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money and other resources together in order to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations.
Politicians and charities have used this method for ages, but now several online platforms enable creative individuals including indie filmmakers to raise funds for their artistic endeavors.
The first film financed by crowdfunding was the award-winning French sci-fi short Demain la Veille. In 2004 their public internet donation campaign helped them raise nearly $50,000.
Today websites like Kickstarter or IndieGoGo allow filmmakers to raise money collectively toward a monetary target. Project owners create a profile on a crowdfunding site listing their monetary targets, an explanation of how the funds will be used, and an end-date for the campaign. Supporters can pledge money toward the goal. Instead of a percentage of the profits, they are offered a variety of rewards in exchange for money: special thanks in the film’s credits, a digital download or a copy of the film on DVD, signed movie posters, invitation to a private screening etc.
Although the average project goal is under $10,000, one of the most successful campaigns raised over $300,000 and enabled the production of the movie Blue Like Jazz.
Crowdfunding websites have democratized support for creative projects by letting fans finance the work of artists directly, and more and more filmmakers realize their potential in film production.