Crowdsourced funding for the arts | updated

Culture360.org's popular round-up of crowdsourced funding initiatives for the arts in Asia and Europe is now updated. See what works and what doesn't and pick up the latest tips from the successful crowdfunding sites.

In the face of the financial crisis and funding cuts for the arts, new initiatives are springing up around the world to crowd source funding for creative projects. Check out some of these new models - and tell us about the ones we missed!

In Ireland, Fund it was launched in March 2011 as an Ireland-wide initiative that provides a platform for people with great ideas to attract funding from friends, fans and followers across the world. It is an initiative of Business to Arts. With many projects now funded watch fund:it's crowd:fund:creativity video on Vimeo:

http://vimeo.com/18526764

In Sweden, FundedByMe is going strong, with a useful online collection of tips and tricks for online crowdfunding success. The first project to be funded was the development of the crowdfunding site itself and it now offers a range of arts, social, charitable, environmental and individual projects in Sweden, Norway and elsewhere.

The UK arts funding initiative WeDidThis was launched in March 2011 as a space for arts organisations to bring their audiences and supporters together to form a 'critical mass' of funders of the arts. By rewarding every donation (however small) with a personalised gift that brings audiences and supporters closer to the creative process, WeDidThis believes arts organisations can become more open, and more resilient. In 2011 it aims to launch over 50 arts projects into the WeDidThis marketplace, from grassroots 'crowdsourced' artists and organisations to prestigious productions from larger arts and cultural institutions.

There is a new French wave of crowdfunding sites: check out Ulule - and "make good things happen".

Also in France there's the successful KissKissBankBank which does just what it says (in French, bien sur!) and a new arrival Mutuzz, which is specifically aimed at artists with digital projects.

The huge UK-based charitable giving project The Big Give has a different profile as it focuses on many types of projects run by organisations registered as charities. There is a huge range of donation opportunities on the site, particularly in the arts and cultural fields, both from the UK and around

the world - you'll find projects from all the major UK national arts companies, orchestras and museums seeking funding to a small community opera tour to India.

And check out fansnextdoor, a European crowd funding initiative running since 2010 described as a platform for all creatives to promote and fund their projects together with their fans. This is an interesting collaborative project which emerged from a group from France, India and the Philippines who met at the University of Luxembourg and decided to set up fansnextdoor.

Pozible is billed as Australia's 1st crowdfunding platform developed for creative individuals, groups and organisations. Again, started in 2010, it's been developed for artists, musicians, filmmakers, journalists, designers, entrepreneurs, inventors, event organisers, software developers and all creative minded people "to help make great things possible". Read this article about Pozible.

And Unbound a special crowfunding initiative for book publishing is launched in the UK, where authors pitch their ideas directly. If you like what you read, you can pledge your support to help make the book happen.

Launched in the UK and with a strong project base there, but also growing around the world - check out Sponsume - "a creative way of funding creativity". Here you can read about what NOT to do when seeking crowdfunding - 'The Seven Deadly Sins of Crowdfunding.' A good feature of Sponsume is the world map to identify project locations.

Another site in the UK is Wefund, a fundraising platform for creative projects where "people offer perks in exchange for pledges." Wefund launched in October 2010 as the first crowd-funding platform to emerge in the UK, focusing on creativity in all forms.

Culture360 has also featured Cinema Reloaded, a crowdsource funding site based in the Netherlands to find co-producers for international film project. There are several crowd funding initiatives in the film field.

Many such projects have been inspired by the success of Kickstarter, the largest funding platform for creative projects in the world. Based in the US, Kickstarter features projects from around the world as does the ever popular and inventive IndieGoGo ("Helping people create campaigns and fund events since 2008").

Read this article about crowdfunding arts and culture in Korea.

Want to know more about how it works? Read this study from researchers at Louvain University in Belgium: 'An Empirical Analysis of Crowdfunding'.

Culture360 would love to hear about crowd funding initiatives in other countries of Europe and Asia - post a comment and inform our community of users!