15 tickets left! Join me July 23rd at Zeitgeist to celebrate two films!
I am very excited to invite you to an upcoming event, hosted by a new initiative I’ve started with my brother. It’s the crowdfunding launch party of two documentary films, one that I am directing and one that we are helping support. The event is July 23rd at 7:30PM at Zeitgeist Art Gallery and Bar. The event will mark the start of two crowdfunding campaigns for the exciting films and the start of our new initiative.
Tickets are free! You can reserve a ticket here.
Why Film Fundraising Partners?
This company has come out of a decade of producing independent short films and a question I kept asking myself: why is it so easy for filmmakers to build audiences and excitement about projects but so hard for them to fundraise?
Whenever I produce projects, it is shockingly easy for me to build authentic, meaningful connections with people along the way. As I produce a film, my subjects’, their networks, nonprofits, organizations, friends, family, audiences, etc. all express excitement and support for the projects. I’m amazed at the sheer scale of relationships I build throughout the process of making a film. It’s part of what drives me to keep doing them.
And, when I screen the films, this excitement only builds! The amount of people who want to stay in touch, help, or get involved in one way or another is remarkable. Films are just exciting to people, and when a community is having a film made about them when they have never had one made, it’s particularly intriguing.
Yet, with all this excitement, it is exceedingly difficult for films to raise money. Most documentaries fail to raise their budget. And most documentaries never get finished because of funding challenges.
Why is this?
It is my belief that the structure of fundraising is broken. Simply, most filmmakers are bad at fundraising, and there is currently no real structure to allow them to engage their community in a sustainable way. It’s awkward to ask for money directly. Filmmakers’ capacity to organize email lists, events, and do so in a structured, organized outreach is limited. The traditional wisdom that would have filmmakers rely on dwindling grants, public funding, and large institutional support is failing (the recent defunding of public television will only accelerate this).
So we’ve founded Film Fundraising Partners to help professionalize the fundraising process in a way that engages communities in authentic, meaningful ways. We do not make films. We help filmmakers do so by helping them engage and grow their audiences. We want to professionalize the fundraising process to allow more, better films to get made. And we want to engage the communities the films reach along the way!
So on Wednesday, July 23rd, the experiment that is Film Fundraising Partners starts. Please come learn more and get involved. Be a part of the community helping make these films happen!
Stay in touch,
David
P.S. if we sell out, don’t worry. There will be lots more events coming soon :)