THE ENLIGHTENED PATRON:
A DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF CLASSICAL MUSIC PROJECTS
FUNDED ON KICKSTARTER FROM 2009 TO 2014
by
STEVEN ANDREW ELDRIDGE, JR.
Master of Music, 2005 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Urbana, Illinois
Bachelor of Science, 2003 Texas A&M University–Commerce Commerce, Texas
Submitted to the Faculty Graduate Division College of Fine Arts Texas Christian University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS
December 2016
THE ENLIGHTENED PATRON:
A DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF CLASSICAL MUSIC PROJECTS
FUNDED ON KICKSTARTER FROM 2009 TO 2014
Document approved:
Dr. Brian A. West Major Professor
Dr. Richard C. Gipson
Dr. Blaise Ferrandino
Dr. William Gibbons
Dr. Ken Richardson
Dr. H. Joseph Butler Associate Dean for the College of Fine Arts
ii
Copyright © 2016 by Steven Andrew Eldridge, Jr. All rights reserved iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to acknowledge several mentors without whom the completion of this document would not have been possible. First, I thank my advisor, Dr. Brian A. West, for his continued guidance and friendship throughout my career. Second, I thank my doctoral committee—Dr. Richard C. Gipson, Dr. Blaise Ferrandino, Dr. William Gibbons, and Dr. Ken
Richardson—for their time and contributions to this project.
I am extremely grateful for the assistance of Fatih Günay. Without his ability to scrape data with a computer code, this project would have stretched on for several more years.
I am particularly appreciative of the numerous backers of my personal Kickstarter projects that helped inspire me to research this aspect of fundraising. I have had three successful projects and one unsuccessful project on Kickstarter. The unsuccessful project especially encouraged me to seek out the answer to what commonalities successful classical music projects on Kickstarter would share.
To my family—James and Denise Coffman, Ashley and Dustin Kahler, Sarah and
Brandon Knight, and Bradley Fast—you have long understood the dedication I place in completing any task. My absence from several events would have been more stressful had you chose to love me any less.
More than any other, I would like to thank my wife, Jennifer, and daughter, Brynn,
Their love, patience, and sacrifice in allowing me time to write and focus on this degree are immeasurable. For that, I am lucky to share this life with you.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES ...... VII
LIST OF FIGURES ...... VII
INTRODUCTION ...... 1 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY ...... 4 NEED FOR THE STUDY ...... 5 LIMITATIONS ...... 5 ORGANIZATION ...... 6
RELATED LITERATURE ...... 8 FUND DEVELOPMENT FOR COMPOSERS ...... 8 THE INFLUENCE OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ON FUNDRAISING ...... 9 KICKSTARTER ...... 10 CROWD-FUNDING MODEL ...... 11 BUILDING THE PROJECT ...... 12 REWARD TIERS ...... 14 FUNDING APPROACHES AND FEES ...... 16 PROJECT PROMOTION ...... 20 MUSIC PROJECTS ON KICKSTARTER ...... 20
METHODS AND PROCEDURES ...... 22 DATA POPULATION ...... 22 DATA COLLECTION ...... 24 DATA FIELDS ...... 25 DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURES ...... 28
RESULTS ...... 32 NUMBER OF PROJECTS ...... 32 AMOUNT RAISED ...... 33 PROJECT GOAL AMOUNTS ...... 35 PERCENTAGE RAISED ...... 37 NUMBER OF BACKERS ...... 38 LENGTH OF PROJECT ...... 39 START MONTH ...... 41 START DAY ...... 42 END MONTH ...... 43 END DAY ...... 44 DESCRIPTION OF PROJECTS ...... 45 NUMBER OF UPDATES ...... 49 NUMBER OF COMMENTS ...... 49 VIDEO INCLUSION ...... 50 DURATION OF VIDEO ...... 51
v
CREATOR TYPE ...... 52 NUMBER OF REWARD LEVELS ...... 53 BREAKDOWN OF REWARDS ...... 54 GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATIONS ...... 56
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH ...... 57 CONCLUSIONS ...... 57 CHARACTERISTICS OF SUCCESSFUL PROJECTS ...... 65 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH ...... 66
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 69
APPENDIX A ...... 71
vi
LIST OF TABLES
TABLES PAGE 1.1 PROHIBITED CATEGORIES FOR KICKSTARTER PROJECTS ...... 15 1.2 KICKSTARTER FEE STRUCTURE IN UNITED STATES, MARCH 2015 ...... 17 1.3 FEE STRUCTURES OF THREE CROWD-FUNDING PLATFORMS ...... 18 3.1 SUB-CATEGORIES FOR THE MUSIC CATEGORY OF KICKSTARTER PROJECTS ...... 23 3.2 LIST OF DATA FIELDS ON KICKSTARTER ...... 24 4.1 NUMBER OF SUCCESSFUL PROJECTS ...... 32 4.2 NUMBER OF SUCCESSFUL PROJECTS COMPARED TO UNSUCCESSFUL PROJECTS ...... 33 4.3 AMOUNT OF FUNDS RAISED BY YEAR ...... 34 4.4 STATISTICAL DATA FOR TOTAL FUNDS RAISED ...... 35 4.5 AMOUNT OF FUNDS ASKED BY YEAR ...... 35 4.6 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PROJECT GOAL AND AMOUNT RAISED ...... 36 4.7 STATISTICAL DATA FOR PROJECT GOAL AMOUNTS ...... 37 4.8 STATISTICAL DATA FOR PERCENTAGE AMOUNTS RAISED (IN PERCENT) ...... 38 4.9 STATISTICAL DATA FOR NUMBER OF BACKERS ...... 39 4.10 STATISTICAL DATA FOR LENGTH OF PROJECT (IN DAYS) ...... 40 4.11 START MONTH OF PROJECTS ...... 42 4.12 END MONTH OF PROJECTS ...... 44 4.13 NUMBER OF PROJECTS BY UNIQUE CAMPAIGN TYPES ...... 48 4.14 STATISTICAL DATA FOR NUMBER OF UPDATES ...... 49 4.15 STATISTICAL DATA FOR NUMBER OF COMMENTS ...... 50 4.16 NUMBER OF PROJECTS WITH / WITHOUT A VIDEO ...... 50 4.17 STATISTICAL DATA FOR DURATION OF VIDEO (MM:SS) ...... 52 4.18 CREATOR TYPES OF PROJECTS ...... 52 4.19 STATISTICAL DATA FOR NUMBER OF REWARD LEVELS ...... 53 4.20 NUMBER OF PROJECTS BY UNIQUE REWARD DOLLAR AMOUNT ...... 55 4.21 STATISTICAL DATA FOR BREAKDOWN OF REWARDS (IN US DOLLARS) ...... 56 4.22 OVERALL NUMBER OF PROJECTS BY STATE / TERRITORY ...... 56 5.1 AVERAGE DOLLARS PLEDGED PER BACKER ...... 59 5.2 AVERAGE DURATION OF PROJECTS (IN DAYS) ...... 60 5.3 POPULAR STARTING / ENDING MONTHS FOR PROJECTS (ABBREVIATED) ...... 60
LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURES PAGE 3.1 REFINE SEARCH FUNCTION ON KICKSTARTER ...... 24 4.1 DURATION OF PROJECTS BETWEEN 2009 TO 2014 ...... 41 4.2 START DAY OF PROJECTS BETWEEN 2009 AND 2014 ...... 43 4.3 END DAY OF PROJECTS BETWEEN 2009 AND 2014 ...... 45
vii 1
THE ENLIGHTENED PATRON: A DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF CLASSICAL MUSIC PROJECTS FUNDED ON KICKSTARTER FROM 2009 TO 2014
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Many musicians are concerned with providing the funds or goods necessary to continue honing their craft. People typically learn fundraising “on the job” as it is an essential tool needed to survive a career in the fine arts. No matter the method used to raise funds, “follow the money” is a phrase often heard by those who wish to be financially successful.
Traditionally, students in classical music study and practice for years to become adept on their instrument. The hope of many young students is to win auditions and to perform with a prestigious orchestra. Orchestras, however, have been shutting their doors at an alarming rate. Hardly a year goes by without news of another orchestra going on strike, or closing altogether, thereby diminishing the job supply. With dwindling chances for securing a position with an orchestra, musicians have had to adapt.
Several well-known music programs, including Juilliard, Carnegie Mellon, and Berklee, now include a class on entrepreneurship within their music major curriculum. The College of Music at the University of Colorado-Boulder was one of the first to open an
Entrepreneurship Center for Music (ECM). Started in 1998 with seed money from the Price
Foundation,1 the ECM’s mission is “to equip today’s music students with the skills and
1 Kerry Miller, “Teaching Musicians to be Entrepreneurs,” Bloomberg, March 28, 2007, accessed July 29, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2007-03-28/teaching-musicians-to-be- entrepreneursbusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice.
2 tools they need to create sustainable careers in the arts.”2
A recent phenomenon in the entrepreneurship model for fundraising is crowd- funding. In crowd-funding, many people can contribute funds to a project to help it achieve success. Prior to crowd-funding, musicians had fewer fundraising options through which to seek funds, such as wealthy philanthropists, foundations, and government agencies. In these three models, fundraising often entailed writing several applications and then waiting for a decision, which was usually made by a small committee overseeing fund disbursement. If a candidate received a “no” from an institution to which they applied, it usually meant going back to the beginning and writing more applications. With the creation of internet platforms such as Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, however, funding decisions have moved from the hands of a small committee to anyone with an internet connection.
By definition, internet crowd-funding is inherently tied to a social media presence.
Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris
Hughes created one such social media platform, Facebook, in 2004.3 Another major contender on social media platforms is Twitter, founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan
Williams, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass.4 Millions of people use these platforms to broadcast any message they feel inclined to share, but perhaps the most interesting statistic deals with degrees of separation.
2 “Entrepreneurship Center for Music,” University of Colorado - Boulder, accessed July 29, 2016, http://www.colorado.edu/music/academics/centers-and-programs/entrepreneurship-center-music. 3 Nicholas Carlson, “At Last -- The Full Story of How Facebook was Founded,” Business Insider, March 5, 2010, accessed July 29, 2016, http://www.businessinsider.com/how-facebook-was-founded-2010-3. 4 Nicholas Carlson, “The Real History of Twitter,” Business Insider, April 13, 2011, accessed July 29, 2016, http://www.businessinsider.com/how-twitter-was-founded-2011-4. 3
A short story, “Chains,” written by Frigyes Karinthy first set forth the concept of a shrinking world. The playwright John Guare later popularized the theory in Six Degrees of
Separation, which contains the following monologue:
I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation. Between us and everybody else on this planet. The president of the United States. A gondolier in Venice. Fill in the names. I find that A) tremendously comforting that we're so close and B) like Chinese water torture that we're so close. Because you have to find the right six people to make the connection. It's not just big names. It's anyone. A native in a rain forest. A Tierra del Fuegan. An Eskimo. I am bound to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people. It's a profound thought. How Paul found us. How to find the man whose son he pretends to be. Or perhaps is his son, although I doubt it. How every person is a new door, opening up into other worlds. Six degrees of separation between me and everyone else on this planet. But to find the right six people.5
Facebook researchers looked into how connected the world has become through its own platform, and the findings suggest that the collective degrees of separation have shrunk to an average 3.57.6 Based on this statistic, an individual with an idea potentially has the ability to immediately reach thousands of people through social media. Author
David Kirkpatrick, in his book “The Facebook Effect,” expands upon this phenomenon: “The
Facebook Effect happens when the service puts people in touch with each other, often unexpectedly, about a common experience, interest, problem, or cause.”7 Though social media is not solely a fundraising platform, it enables entrepreneurs to reach a significantly increased number of people through the internet.
Crowd-funding platforms have, in some way or form, been in existence since 2001
5 John Guare, Six Degrees of Separation, 1990, 91. 6 Sergey Edunov, Carlos Diuk, Ismail Onur Filiz, Smriti Bhagat, and Moira Burke, “Three and a half degrees of separation,” Research at Facebook Blog, February 4, 2016, accessed July 29, 2016, https://research.facebook.com/blog/three-and-a-half-degrees-of-separation/. 7 David Kirkpatrick, The Facebook Effect (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 7.
4 when Brian Camelio launched ArtistShare.8 The Jazz artist and American composer Maria
Schneider initiated the first fan-funded project on ArtistShare.9 The project was an album which later went on to win a Grammy for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album. Since then, some of ArtistShare’s largest competitors—Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, and GoFundMe—have built platforms with which creators may launch projects. Although the future of internet-based crowd-funding remains unclear, it seems certain that modern musicians must adapt to new ways of seeking funds in order to pursue creative activities.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this research is to provide a descriptive analysis of classical music projects funded on Kickstarter from 2009 to 2014. To determine the validity and future of internet-based fundraising, I have collected and analyzed data taken from the early years of crowd-funding. Mr. Fatih Günay accumulated the data through a computer code he created then directed it to find the data from information located on each project’s hosted page using the search and filter capabilities on Kickstarter. I then organized this data, using the criteria found below, so as to examine and determine success rates:
• the amount of money each project set as a goal and accumulated • the amount of backers providing funds • the duration of campaign • type of project creator and description of project • statistics on whether a project included a video, and duration of the video if one was included • the number of reward levels and a classification of reward levels • geographical location of projects
8 “Can You Spare a Quarter? Crowdfunding Sites Turn Fans into Patrons of the Arts,” Knowledge @Wharton (blog), University of Pennsylvania – Wharton, December 8, 2010, accessed July 29, 2016, http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/can-you-spare-a-quarter-crowdfunding-sites-turn-fans-into- patrons-of-the-arts/. 9 Dan Heckman, “Making fans a part of the inner circle,” The Los Angeles Times, February 10, 2008, accessed July 29, 2016, http://articles.latimes.com/2008/feb/10/entertainment/ca-schneider10.
5
Need for the Study
Crowd-funding is quite popular among users of social media, where people often have access to several potential backers. At present, only a handful of published studies exist on the topic of crowd-funding. Their focus is on the industry of music in general, and only include personal interviews, literature reviews. These studies also contained little, if any, data analysis. Additionally, these studies describe either the entire music genre, or are limited in geographical scope to areas outside the United States.
Important questions remain about the viability of crowd-funding for music projects.
Is it a novelty that will quickly be cast to the wayside once a newer and trendier form of fundraising is invented, or will crowd-funding find a permanent place among established methods and offer artists the ability to seek funds with confidence? This study seeks to examine the first six years of data, specifically related to fully-funded classical music projects on Kickstarter.
Limitations
This research focuses on fully-funded projects, hereafter termed successful projects, within the classical music subcategory of the broader music genre on Kickstarter. Such a focus permits the analysis of commonalities between projects. Data from projects that were unsuccessful in raising the goal amount, or suspended, were included only in the frequency counts of project numbers. The study describes the characteristics of successful classical music projects on Kickstarter and does not actively seek to examine or enumerate the reasons behind the failure of those projects which have not been funded.
6
This project is limited to successful classical music projects located in the United
States to provide common characteristics of successful crowd-funding projects for classical musicians. I chose this location because it is the home country of Kickstarter. Projects outside the United States were excluded. This study may, hopefully, serve as a foundation for future research on crowd-funding across the globe.
Organization
This document consists of five chapters, a bibliography, and an appendix. Chapter
One has introduced the reader to fundraising in music, elaborates the purpose and need for the research, defines limitations of the study, and details the organization. Chapter Two examines related literature concerning fundraising in music through Kickstarter, briefly relating this fundraising initiative to the changing nature of fundraising throughout history.
Chapter Three outlines the methods and procedures used to gather and analyze the data.
Chapter Four provides the results for each specific data field through text and table format.
Chapter Five summarizes the data and draws conclusions about the findings. This chapter also expands on recommendations for further research. Finally, a single appendix provides search parameters to locate my e-mail. I will be more than happy to provide a digital copy of the research data. A spreadsheet is not included within this document because the physical layout would be too impractical for readers, but I acknowledge that including the spreadsheet would make it easier for readers to filter results.
8
CHAPTER II
RELATED LITERATURE
American musicians have long needed to be creative in generating income. Prior to the nineteenth century, European musicians supported their craft through noble patronage. With the rise of American democracy, however, society no longer had such a foundation to support creative activities. Through philanthropy or the providing of services, patrons of music supported musicians and composers. Philanthropic patrons in the mid-nineteenth century, such as Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919), focused their wealth on developing cultural attractions, such as his namesake concert venue opened in 1891,
Carnegie Hall.10 Still others provided spaces for composers to write music. America’s first professional composer, Anthony Philip Heinrich (1781–1861), lived in a small log cabin in
Bardstown, Kentucky that a patron provided for him.11
Fund Development for Composers
Composers sought support for creative activities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries through commissions and public concerts. Academia supported composers through theory and harmony teaching appointments. Affluent patrons sometimes underwrote the entire cost of commissioning a large symphonic work.12
Philanthropic activity in early America was commonplace amongst all classes of people, but the term “philanthropist” has more recently come to imply an individual who
10 Inez Elizabeth Wallin, “Andrew Carnegie: Accumulator and Distributor of Wealth” (master’s thesis, University of Southern California, 1938), 170. 11 Betty E. Chmaj, “Father Heinrich as Kindred Spirit: or, How the Log-House Composer of Kentucky became the Beethoven of America,” American Studies 24, no. 2 (Fall 1983), 42. 12 Richard Crawford, America’s Musical Life: A History (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001), 499. 9 gives a large sum of money to support social change.13 Individual patrons who could provide such a large sum often found themselves flooded with appeals for more commissions. Commissioning collectives began to take the place of single payer commissions allowing individuals to spread the cost of a significant commission among members of the collective.
Philanthropic patrons also provided musicians the venue and means necessary to produce concerts. The first such examples were private homes, reminiscent of French style parlors and salons. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge (1864–1953) created the Berkshire Festival of Chamber Music once called the South Mountain Chamber Music Festival in
Massachusetts.14 More significantly, Ms. Coolidge provided a 511-seat capacity auditorium for the Library of Congress.15
The Influence of Federal Government on Fundraising
In 1916, the United States government enacted a Federal Income Tax Law.16 This law provided philanthropists an opportunity to make a tax-deductible contribution if it was made to a hospital, educational institution, or welfare agency. In the 1920s, the government provided additional incentives to encourage private giving to arts organizations.17 As patrons became increasingly inundated with requests for funding, individuals established foundations as tax shelters.
13 Leigh Nanney Hersey, “The Give and Take of Public Funds on Private Gifts” (PhD diss., Arizona State University, 2009), 15. 14 Brittni R. Roach, “Patronage and Power: Women as Leaders and Activists in American Music (1890- 1940)” (master’s thesis, Kent State University, 2014), 30. 15 Ibid., 30. 16 Milton C. Cummings, Jr., “Government and the Arts: An Overview,” in Public Money & The Muse: Essays on Government Funding for the Arts, ed. Stephen Benedict (New York: Norton, 1991), 41. 17 Ibid., 41
10
The Great Depression created economic hardships for working musicians in the
1930s. To assist, the United States government created the Federal Works Progress
Administration (WPA).18 The WPA hired artists directly through Federal Project Number
One, which was comprised of five separate projects: Federal Art Project, Federal Music
Project, Federal Theatre Project, Federal Writers’ Project, and the Historical Records
Survey. Milton Cummings labeled it as, “the closest the United States has come to a socialist arts program.”19 Composers such as John Cage (1912–1992) earned money through the
WPA.
On September 29, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Arts and
Humanities Act, establishing the National Endowment for the Arts.20 Until 1995, the agency provided funds to individuals, but now only supports organizations. New Music USA, the most current organization for granting funds to musicians, began in 2011 as a merger between the old American Music Center and Meet the Composer groups.21
Kickstarter
Launched on April 28, 2009 by founders Perry Chen, Yancey Strickler, and Charles
Adler, Kickstarter is an internet-based crowd-funding platform headquartered in New York
City. Kickstarter is not the only website through which artists can raise funds; IndieGoGo and GoFundMe, for instance, are two similar and popular alternatives. ArtistShare
18 Milton C. Cummings, Jr., “Government and the Arts: An Overview,” in Public Money & The Muse: Essays on Government Funding for the Arts, ed. Stephen Benedict (New York: Norton, 1991), 41. 19 Ibid., 42. 20 Jerry Henderson, The State and The Politics of Culture: A Critical Analysis of the National Endowment for the Arts (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 2005), 3. 21 Grove Music Online, s.v. “New Music USA,” http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.ezproxy.tcu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/A2259045?q=new+m usic+usa&search=quick&pos=1&_start=1#firsthit (accessed February 15, 2015).
11
(launched in 2001) claims the title of the world’s first crowd-funding platform.22
Kickstarter, however, has now established itself as a leader of the crowd-funding initiative, raising more than one billion dollars than its nearest competitor, IndieGoGo.
Crowd-Funding Model
Kickstarter uses a model of fundraising called crowd-funding. It is a system of raising capital for a project by encouraging numerous people to pledge smaller amounts than might be expected through a conventional fundraising venture. Amounts pledged to a project average $25 per person. Typically, creators include a short website description of the project and a short video on the splash page (the first webpage the viewer sees). This page gives an overview of the entire project, including rewards. Each project may have several “reward tiers”—preset dollar amounts above the minimum contribution that confer a tangible incentive (signed posters, deluxe editions, etc.). Those who pledge money to the project, called “backers,” can select one of the dollar amounts to qualify for a specific reward tier. The project author creates rewards which may or may not be project related.
Kickstarter states its mission “is to help bring creative projects to life.”23 By empowering people to create projects and seek funding, Kickstarter has enabled almost eleven million people to back projects, generating almost $2.3 billion for creators.24
22 “Can You Spare a Quarter? Crowdfunding Sites Turn Fans into Patrons of the Arts,” Knowledge @Wharton (blog), University of Pennsylvania – Wharton, December 8, 2010, accessed July 29, 2016, http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/can-you-spare-a-quarter-crowdfunding-sites-turn-fans-into- patrons-of-the-arts/. 23 “Hello,” Kickstarter About, accessed March 14, 2016, https://www.kickstarter.com/about?ref =nav. 24 “Stats,” Kickstarter, accessed March 14, 2016, https://www.kickstarter.com/help/stats?ref= about_subnav.
12
Kickstarter is unique among crowd-funding websites. In an interview for The
Economist, co-founder Perry Chen clarified what makes Kickstarter different from other crowd-funding platforms:
I wonder if people really know what the definition of crowd-funding is. Or, if there’s even an agreed upon definition of what it is. We haven’t actively supported the use of the term because it can provoke more confusion. In our case, we focus on a middle ground between patronage and commerce. People are offering cool stuff and experiences in exchange for the support of their ideas. People are creating these mini-economies around their project ideas. So, you aren’t coming to the site to get something for nothing; you are trying to create value for the people who support you. We focus on creative projects—music, film, technology, art, design, food and publishing—and within the category of crowd-funding of the arts, we are probably ten times the size of all of the others combined.25
Building the Project
Any person or organization can become a “project creator” (or simply “creator”) on the Kickstarter website. Kickstarter offers an online handbook to help creators organize their projects.26 Two things are needed to start a project: a self-assigned project deadline and a predefined financial goal. After defining these parameters, a creator organizes the project’s homepage. Although it is challenging, if not impossible, to predict a project’s success, a study completed by Ethan Mollick and Jeanne Pi helped identify certain traits and indicators of successful projects, though their research focused on all projects hosted on the Kickstarter website.27 The Mollick/Pi study concluded that creators first consider their social network ties as an indicator for success. In other words, the more connections a
25 More Intelligent Life, H.D. “The Q&A: Perry Chen, Kickstarter,” The Economist Blog, Crowd-funding art, October 22, 2010, accessed April 6, 2016, http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2010/10/crowd- funding_art. 26 “Creator Handbook,” Kickstarter, accessed March 14, 2016, https://www.kickstarter.com/help /handbook. 27 Ethan Mollick, “The dynamics of crowdfunding: an exploratory study,” Journal of Business Venturing 29, issue 1 (2014), http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/ S088390261300058X, (accessed February 15, 2015).
13 creator had on social media, the better their chance for success. The Kickstarter handbook recommends that a project include a video and description clearly articulating the project and scope of campaign. Successful projects also clearly define rewards that backers will receive at completion of the project. Lastly, a successful project should include updates, both during and following the project completion, as a way to connect with the supporters.28
As of March 2016, project creation is available to individuals in eighteen different countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy.29 Backers for a project are not limited by geography; support for projects can come from anywhere in the world.30
Ideally, the project’s description and video are designed to tell an engaging story about the project and the creator. Kickstarter encourages creators to describe the project itself, the inspiration for the project, the project’s budget and schedule, and why the project is important to the creator.31 To establish credibility, creators should also include a brief introduction about themselves and provide any pertinent information such as previous work similar to the current project. A creator has the option to not include a video, but
Kickstarter recommends the inclusion of one since projects with videos succeed at a higher rate (50 percent) than those without (30 percent).32
28 “Getting Started,” Kickstarter Creator Handbook, accessed March 14, 2016, https:// www.kickstarter.com/help/handbook/getting_started. 29 “Who can use Kickstarter?,” Kickstarter Creator Questions, accessed March 14, 2016, https://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/creator+questions#faq_41823. 30 Ibid. 31 “Telling your story,” Kickstarter Creator Handbook, accessed March 14, 2016, https:// www.kickstarter.com/help/handbook/your_story. 32 “Is a video required to launch? How do I make a good one?,” Kickstarter Creator Questions, accessed March 14, 2016, https://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/creator+questions?ref=faq_ livesearch#faq_41830.
14
Reward Tiers
Rewards offered to backers for pledging to a Kickstarter project may vary widely, and can be straightforward or complex. The simplest option is to offer the result of the project itself. For example, an ensemble goes to a studio to record themselves, which once produced, can serve as a reward. By Kickstarter rules, projects are not allowed to raise funds for charity, provide financial incentives, or include prohibited categories. (A list of the thirteen prohibited reward categories are included in Table 1.1.33) Pricing of the specific rewards can pose unique challenges, but the best price is one that the public will consider fair. An ensemble’s recording will likely fall within the $10-25 range. Kickstarter suggests $25 as an appropriate pledge level.34 The Kickstarter handbook recommends that creators include several rewards in various tiers to encourage more people to back a project. Most projects offer several varying levels of rewards in ascending increments. One example would be a project offering rewards at $5, $10, $25, $50, and so on.35
Although most rewards are tied to a product created as a result of the project, sometimes a creator can include reward items from the individual or organization’s history. As an example, an organization desiring to raise money towards a recording can also choose to include any previous recordings as a reward. Typically, Kickstarter projects feature a stacking rewards tier system. Through this method, a creator can choose to include any lower reward amounts within any tier above the lower tier. If creators include
33 “Prohibited Items,” Kickstarter Rules, accessed March 14, 2016, https://www.kickstarter.com/ rules/prohibited. 34 “Building rewards,” Kickstarter Creator Handbook, accessed March 14, 2016, https:// www.kickstarter.com/help/handbook/rewards. 35 Ibid.
15 a recording as a reward at the $10 level, for example, then creators could potentially include that reward in all reward tiers above the initial $10 level.
TABLE 1.1. PROHIBITED CATEGORIES FOR KICKSTARTER PROJECTS • any item claiming to cure, treat, or prevent an illness or condition (whether via a device, application, book, nutritional supplement, or other means) • contests, coupons, gambling, and raffles • energy food and drinks • offensive material (e.g., hate speech, encouraging violence against others, etc) • offering a genetically modified organism as a reward • offering alcohol as a reward • offering financial, money-processing, or credit services; financial intermediaries or cash-equivalent instruments; travel services (e.g., vacation packages); phone services (e.g., prepaid phone services, 900 numbers); and business marketing services • political fundraising • pornographic material • projects that share things that already exist, or repackage a previously- created product, without adding anything new or aiming to iterate on the idea in any way • resale; all rewards must have been produced or designed by the project or one of its creators — no reselling things from elsewhere • drugs, nicotine, tobacco, vaporizers and related paraphernalia • weapons, replicas of weapons, and weapon accessories Source: Kickstarter “Our Rules,” https://www.kickstarter.com/rules/prohibited, accessed March 14, 2016.
A creator has four options available to them regarding organization of the reward tiers. The first includes estimated delivery dates. Rewards from the project should include a creator’s best guess on when a particular reward would be made available to the backer.
Kickstarter suggests, “it’s definitely better to underpromise and overdeliver.”36 Several creators include shipping costs for their rewards within the total project costs. A reward could potentially be something as simple as a virtual thank-you on a social media website.
36 “Building rewards,” Kickstarter Creator Handbook, accessed March 14, 2016, https:// www.kickstarter.com/help/handbook/rewards.
16
Kickstarter also allows the option for creators to limit the quantity of their rewards. For example, creators that offer a dinner with them as a reward may limit the number of that specific reward in case that reward’s popularity causes it to oversell. Finally, each project allows the creator to send out surveys following the completion of the fundraising period.
This survey allows the creator to collect each backer’s information, including those backers that receive multiple rewards, in one convenient page, rather than sending several surveys for all rewards to a single person.37
Funding Approaches and Fees
Kickstarter projects feature an all-or-nothing approach to fundraising. Credit card processing companies do not charge backers’ cards until a project reaches the deadline, and only if the project raises at least the minimum stated goal; if a project reaches the deadline having raised only 95 percent of the goal amount, then it fails. Kickstarter also collects a 5 percent fee on top of the total amount though the backer’s pledge is not increased to reflect the fee; the fee is subtracted from the original pledge. Since Kickstarter exists online, cash is not an allowed form of payment; payment is limited only to valid debit and credit cards. The payments processor fee changes based on the amount of pledge from a backer, but ranges from 3 to 5 percent of the total amount.38 A breakdown of the fee structures for Kickstarter is included in Table 1.2.
37 “Building rewards,” Kickstarter Creator Handbook, accessed March 14, 2016, https:// www.kickstarter.com/help/handbook/rewards. 38 “What are the fees?,” Kickstarter Creator Questions, accessed March 14, 2016, https:// www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/kickstarter+basics#faq_41854.
17
TABLE 1.2. KICKSTARTER FEE STRUCTURE IN UNITED STATES, MARCH 2015 Fees Kickstarter Fee 5% of total funds raised Payment Processing Fees 3% + $0.20 per pledge Pledges below $10 have a fee of 5% + $0.05 per pledge Source: Kickstarter “Fee for the United States,” https://www.kickstarter.com/help/fees, accessed March 14, 2016.
A few of Kickstarter’s competitors—GoFundMe, RocketHub, and IndieGoGo—vary their approaches to deadlines and fees. For instance, IndieGoGo, which launched before
Kickstarter, utilizes two funding streams: “flexible funding” and “fixed funding.”39 Contrary to the Kickstarter all-or-nothing approach, IndieGoGo’s flexible funding category allows creators to retain all of the pledges towards their project even if they do not raise the campaign goal. IndieGoGo’s fixed funding category is similar to Kickstarter’s all-or-nothing approach—that is, a creator only keeps the contributions if the project is 100 percent successful.40 GoFundMe also allows a creator to keep all contributions made towards their project, regardless of the pledge amount.41
In the ever-evolving world of the internet, websites must often change tactics to attract new business. Yet, only one of the above mentioned crowd-funding sources changed fee structures between a two-year span (2013–2015). IndieGoGo, with the two different funding options, charged different fees in 2013 to entice people to consider the all-or- nothing approach more seriously. The fee of IndieGoGo’s fixed funding plan was a 4 percent platform fee, and a 3 percent credit card processing fee. The flexible funding approach
39 “Funding choices,” IndieGoGo How it works, accessed March 14, 2016, https:// www.indiegogo.com/how-it-works. 40 Ibid. 41 “How does it work?,” GoFundMe Common Questions, accessed March 14, 2016, https:// www.gofundme.com/questions/.
18 entailed a 4 percent fee if the creator reached their goal, and a 9 percent fee if the goal was not reached. Either way, the credit card processing fee remained steady at 3 percent.42 As of March 2016, IndieGoGo adjusted the percentage rate to 5 percent for both funding programs. Their flexible funding approach does not include a tiered percentage if a project fails to make 100 percent of the goal.43 The payment processing fee is comparable to the competition’s—3 to 5 percent for using the PayPal service, or 3 percent plus a thirty-cent charge per transaction. The IndieGoGo payment processing fee and the GoFundMe fee structures, similar to Kickstarter, has remained steady—a 5 percent platform fee and a 2.9 percent plus thirty-cent credit card processing fee.44 See Table 1.3 below for the fee structures from the three aforementioned crowd-funding platforms.
TABLE 1.3. FEE STRUCTURES OF THREE CROWD-FUNDING PLATFORMS Platform Fee Payment Processing Fee Kickstarter 5% 3-5%
IndieGoGo (PayPal) 5% 3-5%
IndieGoGo (Credit Card) 5% 3% + $0.30 per transaction GoFundMe 5% 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction Source: Data from fee structures of Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, and GoFundMe, accessed March 14, 2016.
Kickstarter changed payment processors in January 2015. Prior to that date, backers needed to log in to Amazon Payments, a process that required backers to access a separate
42 Eldridge, Andrew, “Kickstart Your Music Project with Crowd-Funding” (clinic presented at the Texas Music Educators Association annual convention, San Antonio, TX, February 13, 2014). 43 “Details on Fees,” IndieGoGo Creating your campaign, accessed March 14, 2016, https:// support.indiegogo.com/hc/en-us/articles/206212618. 44 “Pricing & Fees,” GoFundMe Pricing, accessed March 14, 2016, https://www.gofundme.com /pricing.
19 service website. In late 2014, Amazon discontinued the Amazon Flexible Payment Service, which Kickstarter previously used to process over $1 billion in pledges.45
The current payments processor is Stripe, a company that processes payments for
Twitter and Facebook. An advantage of choosing Stripe’s service is the minimization of the click-through process for backers. Click-through is defined as a measure of the number of users clicking on a particular internet link.46 This particular statistic, called the click- through rate (CTR), is expressed as a percentage, and is used to measure the effectiveness of an internet campaign. Essentially, the higher the number, the more funds the project raised. Stripe does not redirect a person to another website to process payments, but collects payment information while still in the Kickstarter project page.
IndieGoGo’s payments processing uses two different services: PayPal, a popular online payments processor, and Stripe to process credit cards.47 GoFundMe also uses Stripe to process payments, but only when processing payments internationally. Payments from backers located in the United States and Canada use a service called WePay, an online payments processor that focuses on two sectors: business tools and crowd-funding applications.48 Ultimately, all crowd-funding platforms use a third-party software to process credit cards on behalf of project creators.
45 “Making Payments Easier for Creators and Backers,” The Kickstarter Blog, January 6, 2015, accessed March 14, 2016, https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/making-payments-easier-for-creators-and-backers. 46 “Click-Through,” American Marketing Association Online Dictionary, accessed March 14, 2016, https://www.ama.org/resources/Pages/Dictionary.aspx?dLetter=C#click-through+(ctr). 47 “How much does Indigogo cost? Fees & Pricing,” IndieGoGo Help Center, accessed March 14, 2016, https://support.indiegogo.com/hc/en-us/articles/204456408. 48 “Payments for Platforms,” WePay, accessed April 1, 2016, https://go.wepay.com/payments-for- platforms.
20
Project Promotion
Kickstarter encourages creators to leverage the power of social media to their advantage by promoting their project on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.49 To announce their projects, creators must organize the various media outlets. Taking a few moments to create an outreach strategy listing relative media outlets for their specific craft or trade can aid the creator by providing a game plan for project promotion. E-mail, another method for creators to disseminate information to their intended audience, allows the creator to send a personal message to individuals along with the advertisement.
Although a somewhat brazen approach, Kickstarter also suggests that creators contact the press to gain coverage of their project. It may be challenging to do so unless the project fits within a larger context of a service to the general public.50
Music Projects on Kickstarter
According to the Kickstarter website, as of April 2016 backers pledged approximately $12.3 billion toward projects involving music, books, events, and food.51
During this same time period, there were 103,188 successfully funded projects out of
291,666 total launched projects, resulting in a success rate of 36.05 percent. While
10,611,841 backers pledged money toward a project, 3,314,371 of those backers backed multiple projects. Music projects, as a distinct category, generated large amounts of the money. Out of the almost 300,000 projects launched on Kickstarter, 45,523 relate to music,
49 “Promotion,” Kickstarter Creator Handbook, accessed March 14, 2016, https:// www.kickstarter.com/help/handbook/promotion. 50 “Promotion,” Kickstarter Creator Handbook, accessed March 14, 2016, https:// www.kickstarter.com/help/handbook/promotion. 51 “Stats,” Kickstarter, accessed March 14, 2016, https://www.kickstarter.com/help/stats?ref= about_subnav.
21 accounting for an astounding $153 million contributed to successful music projects.
Unfortunately, it is only possible to see a current snapshot of the Kickstarter statistics since the webpage that hosts the data is updated at least once a day with raw statistical data.
Kickstarter curates data on all the projects, including unsuccessful metrics, providing an interesting snapshot into failed attempts at crowd-funding. Backers provided a total of $168.86 million to all music projects from 2009 to 2014, and $14.56 million pledged to unsuccessful projects. The most successfully funded projects on Kickstarter are in the category of Music. Out of the 103,188 successful projects on Kickstarter, Music counts 22,606 successful projects, with the Film & Video category close behind at 20,196 successful projects. The next closest category is Publishing, with 9,004 successful projects.
Kickstarter provides metrics on all project pages, displaying the amount of money each project raised measured in total dollar amounts. Project pages also include sums for each project expressed as a percentage. For example, accessing the 22,606 successful music projects, 2,218 raised less than $1,000; 16,329 projects raised between $1,000-$9,999;
2,855 projects raised between $10,000-$19,999; 1,148 raised between $20,000-$99,999;
55 projects raised $100,000-$999,999; and 1 project raised over $1 million.52 With these statistics, most successful music projects raised over $1,000 but less than $10,000.
Kickstarter also provides similar statistics for unsuccessful project campaigns.
52 “Stats,” Kickstarter, accessed March 14, 2016, https://www.kickstarter.com/help/stats?ref= about_subnav.
22
CHAPTER III
METHODS AND PROCEDURES
This study provides a descriptive analysis of the successful classical music projects on Kickstarter from 2009 to 2014. The necessary data for this study is archived by
Kickstarter and is readily available on the projects’ campaign pages. I have created a guide demonstrating where to visibly locate the information. I paid a contractor on the website
Upwork, Mr. Fatih Günay, to code a computer program that gathered information on
Kickstarter at two different points in the analysis.
Data Population
When initially proposing this topic, a concern surfaced about using the term
“classical” to describe the nature of the intended focus. Initially, I changed the document’s title to “art music” to reflect this concern. I then followed a defined protocol on the
Kickstarter website to find the type of music projects germane to this study.
Kickstarter encourages creators to designate a subcategory for projects. However, finding projects under the “classical music” subcategory proved to be a challenge. At some point between 2011 and 2014, Kickstarter made the website more accessible. Thereafter it became easier to find and search subcategories.
After Mr. Günay completed the initial data acquisition, I discovered the new process of filtering results by subcategories. Mr. Günay then conducted a second scrape to more accurately reflect the desired classification. The difference in number of projects between the less accurate first scrape (1,097 projects) and the second scrape (919 projects) is 178 allowing a 19 percent margin of excessive projects. 23
As of 2016, it is unknown how Kickstarter defines classical music per se. Kickstarter itself uses seventeen subcategories under the broader music category, with classical music being one of them. The project creator has the ability to predefine whether their project can be considered under the ”classical music” subcategory. A list of the music subcategories found on Kickstarter can be found in Table 3.1.
TABLE 3.1. SUB-CATEGORIES FOR THE MUSIC CATEGORY OF KICKSTARTER PROJECTS Blues Hip-Hop Pop Chiptune Indie Rock Punk Classical Music Jazz R&B Country & Folk Kids Rock Electronic Music Latin World Music Faith Metal Source: Kickstarter “Discover,” https://www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/music?ref=discover_index, accessed June 15, 2016.
Qualitative data was found by filtering all successful classical music projects from
2009 to 2014. Once an individual arrives on Kickstarter’s homepage, an active anchor tag button named “Discover” directs the navigator to a site page hosting the fifteen broad categories that group all of Kickstarter’s projects. Selecting the “Music” category button then takes the person to a music category page that further allows the individual to refine their search parameters.
After selecting “Refine Search,” more search options appear. A sentence with specific words surrounded by rectangles and arrows invite the searcher to click and choose sub-categories from a drop-down menu. To find projects germane to this study, parameters were changed from: “Earth” to “United States”; “sorted by magic” to “End Date”; and
“Music” to “Classical Music.” An image of the search function on Kickstarter is shown in
Figure 3.1. The search lists all projects, whether currently seeking funding or completed, in
24 a reverse chronological format. Scrolling through the projects enables individuals to load more projects when they reach the end of the page. Loading until all projects are on the webpage takes a significant amount of time.
Figure 3.1. Refine Search function on Kickstarter. Source: https://www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/music?ref=discover_index
Data Collection
The first portion of this project listed the most useful common information found on each Kickstarter project. After a review of the project campaign page, a list of eighteen data points was created. Table 3.2 contains a list of all data fields necessary for the study.
TABLE 3.2. LIST OF DATA FIELDS ON KICKSTARTER Title Start Date Duration of Video Amount Raised End Date Creator Type Project Goal Amount Description Number of Rewards Percentage Raised Number of Updates Breakdown of Rewards Number of Backers Number of Comments Geographical Location Length of Project Inclusion of Video Hyperlink
Most data fields were located easily or counted on a project’s campaign page.
However, I saved two data fields, Description and Creator Type, for last in the analysis as
25 they required combing through each project, reading through the description for certain keywords, and keystroking the data into the master spreadsheet.
Data Fields
I selected Title as a data field to identify the individual projects. Certain titles aided in labeling the projects under the Creator Type data field if and when the project creator provided insufficient information in the campaign story. Titles of projects ranged from the name of the finished project goal to a headline announcement.
Amount Raised signified a data field capable of providing a sum total of the amount for the project, expressed in United States currency. Projects often raised more than the funding goal. The surplus money was an additional amount the creator could use to further support the project. Kickstarter does not stipulate what the creators should do with the extra money.
Creators provided a Project Goal Amount when developing their project. This data field allowed for a comparison between individual anticipated amounts and the amount each project crowd-funded. When compared to the amount raised, the Project Goal Amount determined if the project was successful or unsuccessful.
Expressed as a whole number, Percentage Raised provides a measure of the level of success attained by each project campaign. This number, readily available on each project’s campaign page, is prone to outliers as determined specifically by the project goal amount. A project creator can practically guarantee success if he/she sets the project goal amount to an extremely low number. For example, a project may set the funding goal at
26
$10, yet the project may raise $100. In this instance, the percentage raised will equal 1,000 percent.
The term Number of Backers denotes how many individuals provided funds to a project. When compared to the funding total, this metric establishes the average amount of money per person for a given project.
Length of Project, given as days, indicated the duration of a particular project.
Currently, Kickstarter allows projects to set a funding period of one to sixty days. On June
17, 2011, Kickstarter changed project maximum durations from ninety to sixty. In a blog post, Kickstarter provided a 44 percent success rate as a metric for all projects with durations of less than sixty days, whereas projects with the ninety-day maximum duration only succeeded at 24 percent.
Start Date and End Date determined which specific days and months were the most successful. I further sorted projects by the ending years in order to determine the success metrics in each individual year.
Number of Updates indicates how the project creator engaged their backer community during the course of the project and campaign period. Kickstarter does not obligate creators to post an update to the project. The crowd-funding platform also allows creators the option to set privacy of viewing to “Backers Only,” thereby hiding the contents of an update from the general public.
Conversely, Number of Comments determined the level of interactivity between the backer community and creator during the course of the project. More comments on a project do not determine a project’s popularity, but, instead, measure backer activity.
27
I selected Inclusion of Video and Duration of Video to designate which projects included a video and to establish the video length if applicable. Kickstarter does not require that creators include a video on a project, but, according to Kickstarter, projects are more successful when they include one. The Inclusion data field is presented in a binary “Yes” or
“No,” and the length of the video is indicated as well.
The term Number of Rewards determined the average number of reward levels per project. The Breakdown of Rewards further examined the reward levels by project.
Kickstarter does not require a set amount of rewards, but states that $25 is the most funded reward level. A breakdown of rewards will indicate which reward level was most popular.
Geographical Location designated the particular region of the United States which used the platform. I listed the location as city, followed by state.
The Description and Creator Type data fields required subjective judgment as the description of a project included reading the project story and determining the classification of the project. It was assumed that projects would fall into one of three categories: a professional recording, budget for a specific performance, or a commission for a composer. After reviewing several projects, it became clear that further distinction was needed. More descriptive categories were added, and some existing categories were divided into smaller subdivisions.
For example, creators often raised funds to generate a studio recording. Recordings were categorized by designating if the creator was just beginning to record or in production. This situation might have resulted in a creator already having recorded and
28 subsequently seeking funds to send the recording to a record label or to produce a physical copy.
The term Creator Type is broken into four categories: Individual, Individual for
Ensemble, Individual for Organization, and Organization. Of the four distinctions, Individual was the simplest in that an individual raised funds for their own project. I labeled a creator as an Organization if the entity was an established company, non-profit, or large performing ensemble such as an orchestra or choir.
Two of the creator types needed further analysis. For instance, if a creator type was an Individual for Organization, an individual account was the creator of the project, but the creator often wrote the description under the voice of an Organization, as listed above, and the funds went to that organization. The project story often indicated this situation. The last Creator Type—Individual for Ensemble—needed further thought. Individual for
Ensemble creators were initially grouped in the Individual for Organization category, but the ensemble might be a trio or duo only in name. In this case, an individual might have raised funds for themselves and an acquaintance to perform a duet recital.
Data Analysis Procedures
This study first analyzed the number of classical music projects from 2009 to 2014.
The total number of projects were categorized according to their success rate, and then further divided by successful projects in each year. These data were expressed as a percentage of the total number of projects.
Descriptive statistics—total, minimum, maximum, mean, median, and mode—were used to analyze the research data. The data fields Amount Raised, Project Goal Amount, and
29
Percentage Raised aided in determining the financially successful classical music projects.
Any difference between Amount Raised and Total Project Goal provided a snapshot of how much an average project raised above the intended goal. I used frequency counts and descriptive statistics to analyze the number of backers per project, presenting an overall image of the people backing classical music projects through Kickstarter.
Using descriptive statistics, the data field Length of Project compared the
Kickstarter baseline of the most successful projects lasting thirty days or shorter.
Frequency counts of start and end days of project, as well as start and end months of projects, provided the day or month most often chosen to begin a project.
Critical reading of the campaign description for key words became a necessity in describing the projects. Although several projects crossed several campaign types, I distilled common keywords to a basic combination regardless of priority in the campaign.
Further clarification yielded forty-six unique campaign types. Applied to the description types, frequency counts established which campaign types were the most popular.
Number of Updates and Number of Comments, using descriptive statistics, reflected the activity of project communication between creators and backers. Frequency counts used a binary “Yes” / “No” if a project included a video, whereas descriptive statistics analyzed the duration of a video if a project included one. By critically reading the campaign descriptions, creator, and titles for keywords, Creator Type labels were developed for each project. Frequency counts of creator types then allowed an analysis as to who was most often the creator of a project.
Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the number of unique reward levels.
Certain projects duplicated rewards levels. For instance, project creators may decide to
30 establish three separate $10 reward levels before increasing the price for a separate reward level. In order to provide the frequency counts and descriptive statistics, a refined breakdown of rewards into unique dollar amounts was provided. This analysis gives the most accurate depiction of the selections most creators chose when creating the reward levels. Lastly, I separated Geographical Locations into two separate fields consisting of City and State. Duplicate state names were removed, and then analyzed using frequency counts to determine the state where most projects began.
Microsoft Excel formulae were used in data analysis. The descriptive statistics sum, minimum, maximum, mean, median, and mode were analyzed using the formulas
=sum(Xy:Xz), =min(Xy:Xz), =max(Xy:Xz), =average(Xy:Xz), =median(Xy:Xz), and
=mode(Xy:Xz) where ‘X’ denotes a column and ‘y’ and ‘z’ a row. Frequency counts of specific datum were calculated used the “Count, If” formula: =countif(Xy:Xz, “A”), in which a known piece of information, depicted as ‘A,’ was counted within a specified range with
“Xy:Xz.” In the case of finding unique occurrences of a particular range, Excel 2011 includes a ‘Remove Duplicates’ function after the user selects a range.
The scraped version of Kickstarter data listed all rewards under a single column to preserve locating consecutive data across multiple entries. For example, one cell might contain “1000x1, 1x1, 5x6, 70x3, 200x1, 30x2, 40x2, 450x1, 55x2, 85x2, 140x1, 1450x1.” In this example, the first number indicated a dollar amount, the ‘x’ stood for a multiplier, and the second number indicated how many times the reward level appeared in that specific project.
Initially the data formatting provided by Mr. Günay listed the data as a comma separated value. This data was copied to a separate worksheet within Excel. After
31 separating the single cell of data using the ‘Text to Columns’ function, each text string distributed over multiple columns and appeared as ‘AxB’ where ‘A’ was the first number and ‘B’ was the second. A nested formula within each cell then extracted and displayed the first number. The nested formula was =LEFT(A1,FIND(“x”,A1)-1). The LEFT function directed it to start from the left side, use the nested FIND function to locate the multiplier, move to the left one space, and display the result. The formula, in simpler terms, extracted everything to the left of each ‘x.’ The last step used the inherent ‘Remove Duplicates’ feature to find the unique numbers in the set of duplicates, and run the COUNTIF formula to determine frequency counts. Of course, this process does not include the number of times a particular dollar amount was repeated in each project.
32
CHAPTER IV
RESULTS
This study provides a descriptive analysis of the successful classical music projects between 2009 and 2014 on the crowd-funding platform Kickstarter. The data scraper compiled a spreadsheet from elements found readily on the projects hosted through the
Kickstarter website.
Kickstarter hosted a total of 1,426 classical music projects between 2009-2014. A total of 919 classical music projects were successful; a success rate of 64.5 percent. The descriptive analysis of each data point follows.
Number of projects
Of 919 classical music projects, three projects were completed in 2009, 32 in 2010,
150 in 2011, 250 in 2012, 284 in 2013, and 200 in 2014. These data are listed in Table 4.1.
TABLE 4.1. NUMBER OF SUCCESSFUL PROJECTS Projects Percent of Total 2009 3 0.3 2010 32 3.5 2011 150 16.3 2012 250 27.2 2013 284 30.9 2014 200 21.8 Total 919 100
The number of successful versus unsuccessful projects divided by year appears in
Table 4.2. Kickstarter also retains a project page for any project in which the creator canceled the project (one hundred projects between 2009 and 2014), as well as any 33 projects that the site suspended (three projects between 2009 to 2014), presumably for using prohibited project content.
Kickstarter began in the month of April 2009, yet the first successful classical music project was not begun until five months afterwards in September. Every classical project in
2009, both successful and unsuccessful, began in September. The greatest number of classical music projects occurred in 2012. The largest amount of successful classical music projects was in 2013 (284 projects), resulting in a success rate of 75.5 percent. The year with the lowest successful completion percentage was 2010. The successful completion percentage was 58.1 percent, a difference of just over 17 percentage points between 2010 and the highest completion percentage from 2013.
TABLE 4.2. NUMBER OF SUCCESSFUL PROJECTS COMPARED TO UNSUCCESSFUL PROJECTS Total Successful Percent Unsuccessful Percent Projects Projects (by year) Projects (by year) 2009 5 3 60 2 40 2010 55 32 58.1 23 41.8 2011 218 150 68.8 68 31.2 2012 380 250 65.8 130 34.2 2013 376 284 75.5 92 24.5 2014 289 200 69.2 89 30.8 Total 1,323 919 69.4 404 30.5
Amount Raised
Successful music projects raised a grand total of $5,412,231. The lowest year’s total,
$13,469, occurred in 2009, accounting for 0.2 percent of the total amount raised between
2009-2014. The year with the highest grossing funds ($1,902,851) and percentage (35.2 percent) was 2013. These data are displayed in Table 4.3.
34
TABLE 4.3. AMOUNT OF FUNDS RAISED BY YEAR Projects Percent of Total 2009 $13,469 0.2 2010 $186,892 3.5 2011 $649,443 12.0 2012 $1,340,202 24.8 2013 $1,902,851 35.2 2014 $1,319,374 24.4 Total $5,412,231 100
Additionally, the minimum, maximum, mean, median, and mode data, analyzed according to individual year and all successful classical music projects, are listed in Table
4.4. Compared to all other years, 2009 shows a remarkable deviance from the years that follow. The total funds raised for 2009 were only $13,469, yet the year also provided a project raising the highest minimum amounts for all years combined. In 2013, a project raising $121,227 was the highest for all years combined, a figure almost double the next highest maximum ($68,359) from a project in 2010. Although the data show minimum and maximum extremes, the average amount raised for all successful classical music projects was $5,889. The range between average project amounts from 2009 to 2014 was a modest
$2,370. An average of $4,330 per project was raised in 2011, whereas 2013 raised an average of $6,700. The median amount raised on a project between 2009-2014 was $3,796.
The years 2009 and 2010 did not have a mode because of the lack of enough projects to statistically provide a chance for duplication. Whereas most of the modes for years resulted in a round, whole number, 2013 had two separate projects raise the same amount, $3,689.
These data are shown in Table 4.4.
35
TABLE 4.4. STATISTICAL DATA FOR TOTAL FUNDS RAISED Total Minimum Maximum Mean Median Mode Funds Raised 2009 $13,469 $2,285 $8,337 $4,490 $2,847 N/A 2010 $186,892 $595 $68,359 $5,840 $3,228 N/A 2011 $649,443 $68 $37,111 $4,330 $2,888 $1,000 2012 $1,340,202 $10 $50,565 $5,361 $3,690 $5,000 2013 $1,902,851 $29 $121,227 $6,700 $4,170 $3,689 2014 $1,319,374 $266 $50,206 $6,597 $4,378 $2,500 All $5,412,231 $10 $121,227 $5,889 $3,796 $2,500 Successful
Project Goal Amounts
The total goal amount for the entire successful music projects was $4,569,612. The lowest total goal amount and percentage of the total funds raised occurred in 2009; the combined goal amount of $12,340 represented .03 percent of the total for all years. The year with the highest goal amount ($1,558,147) and percentage (34.1 percent) was 2013.
These data are displayed in Table 4.5.
TABLE 4.5. AMOUNT OF FUNDS ASKED BY YEAR Projects Percent of Total 2009 $12,340 0.3 2010 $115,075 2.5 2011 $562,138 12.3 2012 $1,174,333 25.7 2013 $1,558,147 34.1 2014 $1,147,579 25.1 Total $4,569,612 100
For every single year on Kickstarter, backers pledged more than was asked by the project creators. The most remarkable change occurred between 2009 and 2010. In 2009, projects grossed $1,129 more than the goal amount. There was a significant jump in 2010
36 as projects grossed $71,817. The next significant jump occurred in 2012. Although the
2011 difference between total funds raised and project goal amount was $87,305, the difference in 2012 almost doubled the previous year’s amount to $165,869. This increase likely stems from the dramatic increase in the amount of classical music projects in 2012.
One other piece of data stands out in the difference chart. Creators raised a total of 162 percent of the goal amount in 2010, whereas projects typically raised an average of 115 percent. In this statistic, 2010 becomes the outlier year. These data can be seen in Table
4.6.
TABLE 4.6. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PROJECT GOAL AND AMOUNT RAISED Total Funds Total Project Difference Over Raised Goal Percentage 2009 $13,469 $12,340 $1,129 109 2010 $186,892 $115,075 $71,817 162 2011 $649,443 $562,138 $87,305 116 2012 $1,340,202 $1,174,333 $165,869 114 2013 $1,902,851 $1,558,147 $344,704 122 2014 $1,319,374 $1,147,579 $171,795 115 All Successful $5,412,231 $4,569,612 $842,619 118
The descriptive statistics minimum, maximum, mean, median, and mode data, analyzed by individual year and all successful classical music projects, are listed in Table
4.7. In 2011, 2012, and 2014, the minimum project goal amount was $10, while the highest maximum goal amount among all years was $75,000 in 2013. Looking at the mode statistic reveals two numbers for frequently asked goal amounts, $1,000 and $5,000. In 2010, five projects—16 percent of the year sampling—sought $1,000, whereas twelve projects—8 percent of the sampling—sought $1,000 in 2011. Twenty-three projects set $5,000 as the goal amount in 2012 (9 percent of the sample) and in 2013 (8 percent). This same goal
37 amount was popular in 2014, where seventeen project creators chose $5,000 as the goal amount. These data are shown in Table 4.7.
TABLE 4.7. STATISTICAL DATA FOR PROJECT GOAL AMOUNTS Total Minimum Maximum Mean Median Mode Project Goal 2009 $12,340 $2,000 $7,840 $4,113 $2,500 N/A 2010 $115,075 $500 $15,000 $3,596 $2,500 $1,000 2011 $562,138 $10 $33,000 $3,748 $2,500 $1,000 2012 $1,174,333 $10 $30,000 $4,697 $3,000 $5,000 2013 $1,558,147 $15 $75,000 $5,486 $3,850 $5,000 2014 $1,147,579 $10 $48,000 $5,738 $3,600 $5,000 All $4,569,612 $10 $75,000 $4,972 $3,200 $5,000 Successful
Percentage Raised
Expressed as a percentage, the project goal amount reveals that most successful projects raised between 111 and 126 percent of their goal. Certain outliers exist in four particular years: 2010, 2011, 2013, and 2014. The outliers tend to skew the mean higher than the trend would suggest. In 2010, a project raised 621 percent of the anticipated goal.
Since the sampling for that particular year only included thirty-two projects, this project skewed the mean considerably. If the outlier is removed from consideration, 2010 would end up with a mean of 122 percent.
In 2011, a different project ended with an astronomical 28,013 percent raised of the anticipated goal amount. Without the outlier percentage included in the year’s mean, 2011 would have a 125 percent average of the goal raised. In 2013, a project raised 1,212 percent of the anticipated goal, and in 2014 a project raised 2,660 percent of a target amount. Without those outliers factored in with the project amount in percentage terms,
38
2013 would have an average of 126 percent and 2014 would have 118 percent. The data are shown in Table 4.8. The mode reveals that most projects in each year succeed at 101 percent, whereas the median project for each year succeeded within the 109 to 114 percent range. The data are shown in Table 4.8.
TABLE 4.8. STATISTICAL DATA FOR PERCENTAGE AMOUNTS RAISED (IN PERCENT) Minimum Maximum Mean Median Mode 2009 106 114 111.3 114 114 2010 100 621 138 114.5 101 2011 100 28,013 310.5 109.5 101 2012 100 347 119 109 101 2013 100 1212 130.2 111 101 2014 100 2660 131.1 110 100 All Successful 100 28,013 157 110 101
Number of Backers
Seventy thousand, two hundred forty-eight people backed a classical music project from 2009 to 2014. Perhaps most striking is the steep decline in backers between 2013 and
2014. In 2013, a record 28,698 people backed a project, yet only 14,213 people backed projects in 2014. In 2012, one particular project had the fewest number of backers out of all years combined with just one backer. The maximum statistic reveals two years with substantial numbers of backers. In 2010, a project received pledges from 1,276 people, whereas a project in 2013 had 4,256 backers. The average number of backers for all successful classical music projects was 76.4 people per project. Nineteen projects in the total sampling had twenty-six backers, the most common mode number. The data analysis of backer details is shown in Table 4.9.
39
TABLE 4.9. STATISTICAL DATA FOR NUMBER OF BACKERS Total Minimum Maximum Mean Median Mode 2009 211 44 85 70.3 82 N/A 2010 2,972 8 1,276 92.9 43 34 2011 7,942 4 374 53 42 26 2012 16,212 1 285 64.9 50 35 2013 28,698 2 4,256 101.1 63 21 2014 14,213 5 660 71.1 55 43 All 70,248 1 4,256 76.4 53 26 Successful
Length of Project
When Kickstarter first began in 2009, project duration could be set as long as ninety days. On June 17, 2011, Kickstarter changed the allowable maximum project length to sixty days based on data demonstrating that projects with the maximum durations succeeded at a far lower rate than those with shorter durations. This study reflects that change. Prior to
2011, this research demonstrates that several project creators chose eighty-nine or ninety days for their project length. After Kickstarter changed the maximum project length in
2011, creators could only choose a maximum of sixty days, and the range of years from
2012 to 2014 confirm creators opted for the sixty day maximum. The shortest project duration length of six days occurred in 2013. The average length of all classical music projects was thirty-four days, a figure close to midway of the sixty day project allotment time. Most telling about project length was the number of years during which thirty days was the highest mode statistic. A third of the sampling, 312 projects, selected thirty days as the project length. Three-hundred fifty-one creators chose project lengths greater than thirty days, whereas 256 creators of projects chose durations less than thirty days. These data are shown in Table 4.10.
40
TABLE 4.10. STATISTICAL DATA FOR LENGTH OF PROJECT (IN DAYS) Minimum Maximum Mean Median Mode 2009 25 89 47.7 29 N/A 2010 14 89 46.1 39 89 2011 7 90 40.1 34 30 2012 8 60 34.2 30 30 2013 6 60 31.3 30 30 2014 8 60 31 30 30 All Successful 6 90 34 30 30
A breakdown of the project durations by days shows that projects tend to have durations of twenty-one, thirty, forty-five, or sixty days. The greatest concentration of project deadlines, a total of 312 projects, occurred on the thirty-day mark. The twenty-one day mark had thirty-seven projects, the forty-five day mark had thirty-six projects, and the sixty day mark had sixty-nine projects. A greater concentration of projects, a total of 526, ended between twenty-five to thirty-six days, a figure that accounts for more than half of the sampling.
In 2009, project creators chose twenty-five, twenty-nine, and eighty-nine days as the longest project durations. In 2010, creators chose thirty, thirty-one, and eighty-nine days as the longest durations. Creators favored durations of thirty, forty-five, and sixty days in 2011. Once Kickstarter changed the maximum amount of days to less than sixty and the sampling grew significantly, the trends became more pronounced. In 2012, projects favored thirty, forty-five, and sixty-day durations. Projects in 2013 and 2014 each favored project durations of thirty-days. However, twenty-one and sixty day durations were also popular in those years. The data can be seen in Figure 4.1.
41
120
100
80 60
Number of Projects 40 20 0 6 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 Duration (in days)
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Figure 4.1. Duration of Projects between 2009 to 2014
Start Month
The entire sampling demonstrates that May was the month that project creators most often chose to start the project campaign; ninety-four projects begun during this month. April and September were also popular starting months, with eighty-seven and eighty-eight projects respectively begun during these months. In 2009, all three successful projects begun in September. In 2010, seven projects begun in November. There were three months in 2011 with seventeen project launches: April, July, and October. In 2012, thirty projects started in May, whereas thirty-four project launches occurred in September and thirty-three began in May 2013. February 2014 had the most project launches, a total of twenty-six. Most years showed a narrow range between project launch months, but two years showed a minor decline in specific launch months. In 2011, February, March, and
December had the fewest number of project launches at five, eight, and nine, respectively.
42
May 2014 had only six project launches, a number much lower than the average of sixteen project launches per month. These data are shown in Table 4.11.
TABLE 4.11. START MONTH OF PROJECTS Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2009 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 2010 3 1 2 1 3 3 0 3 5 3 7 1 2011 11 5 8 17 14 12 17 10 15 17 15 9 2012 14 26 22 24 30 24 22 17 17 15 25 14 2013 27 25 25 30 33 16 23 22 34 19 13 17 2014 17 26 22 15 14 6 10 19 14 19 21 17 All Successful 72 83 79 87 94 61 72 71 88 73 81 58
Start Day
Most creators launched a project in the first half of the month rather than the second half. However, the twenty-fourth day of the month was the most popular day to launch, a day chosen by forty-one project creators. The day with the fewest launches among all successful classical music projects was the thirty-first. Only nine projects launched on this day, which is likely partly due to the frequency with which that day appears in a calendar year. In 2009, the most popular day to launch was the fourteenth.
Popular days to launch in other years were the eighteenth in 2010, the sixth and twenty- seventh in 2011, the twenty-fourth in 2012, the twenty-fifth in 2013, and the twelfth in
2014. During Kickstarter’s first two years, the number of projects launched was too small to establish a least popular day. However, in 2011 the days with the least amount of project launches were the third, twentieth, twenty-fifth, and thirty-first. In 2012 and 2013, the day with the least project launches was the thirty-first. In 2014, the day with the least project launches was the twenty-ninth day. These data are graphed in Figure 4.2.
43
45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 Total Number of Projects 5 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 2014 7 6 9 6 3 5 8 8 7 7 11 13 8 9 8 10 2 6 6 4 8 5 8 5 3 10 4 6 0 4 4 2013 8 11 11 13 10 5 8 10 10 5 7 11 9 11 10 8 9 6 6 7 10 6 14 11 15 9 13 7 12 10 2 2012 9 10 6 8 9 11 12 8 9 10 9 4 10 9 10 2 10 8 10 2 8 8 6 17 8 10 8 6 8 4 1 2011 6 8 1 7 5 9 6 3 5 5 6 8 5 4 3 3 3 2 8 1 6 6 5 8 1 3 9 6 5 2 1 2010 1 2 0 0 2 1 0 1 2 2 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 4 2 1 0 1 2 0 1 1 1 0 1 3 1 2009 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Figure 4.2. Start Day of Projects between 2009 and 2014
End Month
Ninety-five project creators chose March as the month during which to end their project. June had ninety projects end, May had eighty-nine, and December had eighty- seven, designating these as popular months in which to end projects. Project creators chose
February the least often, and only fifty-seven projects ended in that month. In 2009, two projects ended in October and one in December. In 2010, five creators in the months of
July, October, and December chose these months to end their projects. Creators chose
December as the most popular month for ending their projects in 2011 and 2014, with twenty-one and twenty-five ending at this time. In 2012, May was the month with the most project end dates (twenty-eight), whereas March 2013 had thirty-eight projects end. In
44
2011 and 2012, February had the fewest number of project endings; six and thirteen projects ended during this month. January 2013 had only thirteen projects end. July 2014 saw the projects decline to six projects, a figure just one-third the previous year. These data are listed in Table 4.12.
TABLE 4.12. END MONTH OF PROJECTS Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2009 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 1 2010 1 1 3 2 1 2 5 1 3 5 3 5 2011 10 6 10 8 14 16 10 15 13 15 12 21 2012 19 13 21 26 28 26 23 23 19 19 14 19 2013 13 20 38 21 28 35 18 24 20 33 18 16 2014 16 17 23 24 18 11 6 12 18 11 19 25 All Successful 59 57 95 81 89 90 62 75 73 85 66 87
End Day
Fifty-five project creators chose the ending date to coincide with the first day of a month. The first was the most often picked day for the years 2011 and 2013. In 2014, the first day was a top choice with twelve creators, but the second day of the month was equally as popular. The fifth of the month had the highest number of campaign endings during 2010. The outlier year was 2012, as the sixteenth of the month was the most often picked day to end a campaign; thirteen projects ended on this day. The day with the least amount of project endings for all years combined was the thirtieth day of the month. Again, the sample sizes for 2009 and 2010 were too small to designate a least popular day to end a project. In 2011, the fourth and tenth day of the month had only one project ending each, making this the least popular day to end a classical music project. Creators chose the thirtieth day the least often for project endings in 2012. Four projects ended at that time. In
45
2013, the day with the least amount of ending projects was the seventh, whereas the twenty-eighth was the least popular day in 2014. These data are graphed in Figure 4.3.
60
50
40
30
20
Total Number of Projects 10
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 2014 12 12 5 7 12 4 6 8 4 7 10 4 4 7 6 8 8 5 6 8 4 5 5 4 10 8 7 2 4 4 4 2013 19 12 8 8 7 11 4 11 3 10 7 6 9 10 13 11 6 10 7 12 5 10 14 9 11 7 7 10 11 8 8 2012 11 8 9 7 6 5 11 8 11 8 5 5 6 11 12 13 7 5 6 9 8 8 12 11 8 8 5 10 6 4 7 2011 12 10 3 1 8 10 4 4 6 1 7 5 5 3 5 6 2 4 5 3 9 3 5 4 3 4 3 3 5 2 5 2010 1 1 2 0 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 3 1 1 0 2 1 0 1 1 0 2 1 1 0 2 1 2 2009 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Figure 4.3. End Day of Projects between 2009 and 2014
Description of Projects
After review of the entire sample set, the results were narrowed down to forty-six distinct campaign types. Many of the projects crossed streams with several campaign types.
For example, a project might have raised funds for a performance, a studio recording, and/or a commission for new music. The campaign type with the highest number of projects, a total of 314, produced a professional recording. Two-hundred nineteen creators raised funds to produce a performance.
46
The category of recording production, a campaign seventy-one project creators chose, involved any campaign in which the performing ensemble had already professionally recorded in a studio, but needed assistance with the completion of the recording process including editing, mastering, or otherwise finalizing a recording. Sixty- two projects raised funds to commission a composer, a campaign that was the fourth most chosen by project creators. These data are shown in Table 4.13 located in Appendix B.
Nineteen projects had unique campaigns that could not be classified within the preconceived campaign types. In these instances, distinct campaign types were created to describe the project. For example, a project created by Avi Pilcer established a campaign to create an anodized aluminum and plated gold encased Universal Serial Bus (USB) device worn as a bracelet.53 The USB device contained a digital download of a violin recording.
This particular project had eighty backers who pledged $10,846 to the campaign. A project by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO) digitally archived three historical videos of the orchestra led by former ASO Music Director Robert Shaw, and raised $13,590; 272 percent of the initial $5,000 goal.54 In 2014, Paul Carlson created a project, entitled “The Peregrine
Consort Takes Wing,” and raised funds to create an ensemble “dedicated to performing the
Bach cantatas in the Boston area.”55 This project raised $8,520 from seventy-five backers.
53 Avi Pilcer, “VK – first and only Musical Jewel in the World,” June 2, 2011, accessed July 29, 2016, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/avip/the-vk-usb-violin-key/description. 54 Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, “Preserve The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s Legacy,” August 2, 2013, accessed July 29, 2016, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/422348207/preserve-the-atlanta-symphony- orchestras-legacy/description. 55 Paul Carson, “The Peregrine Consort Takes Wing,” November 22, 2014, accessed July 29, 2016, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/467596475/the-peregrine-consort-takes-wing/description.
47
Mary Sutton raised $5,158 to fund a project named “Emahoy Sheet Music Project.”56
The project goal was $3,000, and she raised 172 percent. This is the only public classical music project on Kickstarter to have a challenge with copyright laws. Mr. Günay compiled the data scrape prior to the February 22, 2016 notice submitted to Kickstarter on behalf of the Emahoy Tsege Mariam Music Foundation.57 In the notice, the foundation claims to have the copyright to the music and mentions that Ms. Sutton did not ask for permission before raising funds for the project. The Emahoy Sheet Music Project data is included in the complete research data but the campaign type is listed as “N/A.”
56 Mary Sutton, “Emahoy Sheet Music Project,” June 29, 2013, accessed July 29, 2016, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1483053327/emahoy-sheet-music-project?ref=discovery. 57 The Emahoy Tsege Mariam Music Foundation, “Emahoy Sheet Music Project,” February 22, 2016, accessed July 29, 2016, https://www.kickstarter.com/dmca/emahoy-sheet-music-project-submitted-by-the- emahoy-tsege-mariam.
48 4.13. NUMBER OF PROJECTS BY UNIQUE CAMPAIGN TYPES Campaign Number Commission 62 Commission / Performance 8 Commission / Recording 8 Commission / Recording / Performance 7 Commission / Travel 2 Commission Fund Replenishment 1 Competition Budget 1 Competition Budget / Recording 1 Documentary 1 Ensemble Creation 1 Equipment Purchase 2 Festival Budget 26 Instrument Construction 2 Instrument Rental 1 Jewelry Manufacture 1 Laptop / Video Camera Supplies 1 Media Archival Digital Conversion 1 Merchandise Budget 1 Merchandising / Recording / Travel 1 Music Lessons 1 N/A 1 Performance 219 Performance / Recording 30 Performance / Recording Production 3 Performance / Travel 13 Performance / Travel / Recording 3 Printing Budget 5 Recording 314 Recording / Method Books 2 Recording / Sheet Music / Textbook 1 Recording / Tour 1 Recording Equipment 1 Recording Label Launch 2 Recording Production 71 Rehearsal 1 Residency 2 Season Budget 37 Season Budget / Travel 1 Summer Festival 7 Summer Festival / Performance / Recording 1 Tour 20 Travel 33 Travel / Rehearsal 5 Travel / Tuition 3 Video / Audio Recording 3 Video Recording 11 Total 919
49
Number of Updates
Of the entire sample size, 109 projects did not provide an update during the active campaign duration. One hundred nine projects, the most often-repeated mode number, gave two updates. The average number of project updates was six, and the median was four project updates. The only year that had more than zero updates as a statistical low was
2009. There was a project high of fifty-one updates in 2012. These data are shown in Table
4.14.
TABLE 4.14. STATISTICAL DATA FOR NUMBER OF UPDATES Minimum Maximum Mean Median Mode 2009 2 10 6.3 7 N/A 2010 0 27 7.1 3.5 2 2011 0 37 5.6 5 2 2012 0 51 6.2 5 0 2013 0 50 6.6 5 2 2014 0 25 5.1 4 1 All Successful 0 51 6 4 2
Number of Comments
Each year of the sample size had a minimum and mode statistic of zero comments provided by backers. The largest number of comments on a project occurred in 2013 with
1,344 comments, whereas the smallest figure for the maximum statistic occurred in 2009.
The average overall number of comments per project was four. However, 2014 had the lowest average of comments per project at 1.3. The highest average of comments was in
2010 and projects in this year averaged 12.2 comments. Perhaps most striking is the median number of comments, which trended downwards every two years. The average number of backer comments from 2009 to 2010 was two, and that number decreased to zero from 2013 to 2014. These data are shown in Table 4.15.
50
TABLE 4.15. STATISTICAL DATA FOR NUMBER OF COMMENTS Minimum Maximum Mean Median Mode 2009 0 13 5 2 N/A 2010 0 311 12.2 2 0 2011 0 14 2.1 1 0 2012 0 37 2 1 0 2013 0 1,344 7.7 0 0 2014 0 18 1.3 0 0 All Successful 0 1,344 4 1 0
Video Inclusion
The overwhelming majority of all successful classical music projects included a video on their project campaign page. Whereas 802 projects included a video, 117 did not.
The largest separation between the projects that did or did not include a video was in 2013 when 256 projects included a video and twenty-eight did not. The year with the highest number of videos was 2013, but this statistic is likely due to the year’s sample size. The year with the highest number of projects without a video was 2011 when thirty-four project creators did not include a video. These data are listed in Table 4.16.
TABLE 4.16. NUMBER OF PROJECTS WITH / WITHOUT A VIDEO Video – Yes Video - No 2009 2 1 2010 24 8 2011 116 34 2012 221 29 2013 256 28 2014 183 17 Total 802 117
51
Duration of Video
When projects included informational videos contributing information for the campaign, the average video length was three minutes, thirty-four seconds. The shortest video lasted only sixteen seconds, whereas the longest video was twenty minutes, seven seconds. The video duration that most creators chose was two minutes, five seconds. In
2009, two of the three projects included a video and the shortest was one minute, thirteen seconds and the longest video was eight minutes, forty-seven seconds. After 2009, the shortest videos all measured shorter than one minute. The shortest video of all was from
2014, the last sample year. This video’s duration was sixteen seconds. After 2011, the longest video durations fell within a range of four minute window between eleven minutes and fifteen minutes, thirteen seconds. Only two projects crossed the twenty-minute threshold.
A project in 2011 had the longest overall video, twenty minutes, seven seconds, whereas the following year had a project include a video that lasted twenty minutes, two seconds. Except for the first year with only two projects, every other year of the sample had an average length of between three and four minutes. In 2010, the median duration was two minutes eleven seconds, which was below the overall median of three minutes, nine seconds. These data are listed in Table 4.17.
52
TABLE 4.17. STATISTICAL DATA FOR DURATION OF VIDEO (MM:SS) Minimum Maximum Mean Median Mode 2009 1:13 8:47 5:00 5:00 N/A 2010 0:38 8:16 3:11 2:11 4:32 2011 0:30 20:07 3:55 3:18 3:38 2012 0:27 20:02 3:43 3:11 2:05 2013 0:23 11:16 3:27 3:08 4:03 2014 0:16 13:28 3:23 3:06 2:22 All Successful 0:16 20:07 3:34 3:09 2:05
Creator Type
Of the total sample size (919), 411 projects were classified as an Individual creator type. Two hundred ninety-six creators were designated as an Organization. One-hundred sixty-two creators consisted of Individual for Organizations, and forty-nine as Individual for Ensembles. The three successful projects in 2009 consisted of Individual creator types and one Individual for Organization type. The first appearance of an Individual for
Ensemble type was in 2011. All four of the creator types decreased from 2013 to 2014. The largest number of Individual and Organization creator types happened in 2013, whereas the most Individual for Organization creator types occurred in 2012. These data can be seen in Table 4.18.
TABLE 4.18. CREATOR TYPES OF PROJECTS Individual Organization Individual for Individual for
Organization Ensemble 2009 2 0 1 0
2010 22 3 7 0 2011 68 52 23 7
2012 111 65 63 11 2013 131 100 36 16
2014 77 76 32 15 Total 411 296 162 49
53
Number of Reward Levels
The overall average number of reward levels per project was 7.9. Almost every year, except 2011, revealed a reward level average within plus or minus three-tenths of the overall averages. In 2011, the average number of rewards was 7.2. The median for all years was 8.0 rewards per project, but some years dipped closer to 7.0 (2011 and 2014) and 7.5
(2012).
One hundred seventeen projects chose six reward levels, a figure that represents the mode for all successful classical music projects. In 2012, the mode was nine rewards per project, whereas 2010 and 2013 had eight rewards, 2014 had seven, and 2011 had six.
There was no mode for 2009. The highest number of rewards occurred in 2013 when a project had thirty-six reward levels. Every year, the maximum number of rewards increased until 2014. In 2014, twenty-six levels marked a decrease in the trends. In 2009 when the smallest number of rewards was four, each subsequent year had at least one project with one reward level. There were twenty-one projects overall that had one reward level. These data can be seen in Table 4.19.
TABLE 4.19. STATISTICAL DATA FOR NUMBER OF REWARD LEVELS Minimum Maximum Mean Median Mode
2009 4 11 7.7 8 N/A 2010 1 14 7.9 8 8
2011 1 23 7.2 7 6 2012 1 29 8.1 7.5 9
2013 1 36 8.2 8 8 2014 1 26 8.2 7 7
All Successful 1 36 7.9 8 6
54
Breakdown of Rewards
Between 2009 and 2014, there were 144 unique reward amounts. Every dollar amount from $1 to $20 occurred at some point in the sample. The one exception was $19, a dollar amount creators never selected. After $50, reward amounts tend to follow a multiple of five with minor exceptions. Project creators often designed a $25, $50, or $100 reward level, but creators could choose any monetary amount to reflect the value of a reward.
Six hundred ninety-nine creators chose the reward amount of $100, followed by $50
(685 creators), $25 (649 creators), $500 (567 creators), and $10 (551 creators). Overall, at least fifty project creators chose twenty-five reward levels. A range between fifty and less than one hundred project creators chose seven reward amounts: $35, $40, $60, $125, $750,
$1,500, and $2,000. More than one hundred, but less than three hundred, creators chose eleven reward amounts: $1, $5, $15, $20, $30, $75, $150, $200, $300, $2,500, and $5,000.
The most popular reward amounts were: $10, $25, $50, $100, $250, $500, and $1,000.
These amounts were chosen by more than 400 creators. These data are shown in Table
4.20.
The minimum reward amount provided by project creators for all years was $1.
One creator offered the $1 reward tier amount in 2009, ten in 2010, forty-nine in 2011, sixty-nine in 2012, sixty-nine in 2013, and thirty-four in 2014. The maximum reward amount over all years was $10,000, an amount chosen by thirty-two creators. This was also the top reward amount offered from 2011 to 2014. However, classical music projects in the first two years of Kickstarter designated $2,000 and $7,500 as the top reward tier amounts in 2009 and 2010, respectively. The median reward amount over all six years sampled was
$75. Creators chose the $50 and $100 levels for a majority of the successful classical music
55 projects. In 2009, 2012, and 2013, $50 was the mode statistic. In these years, three creators chose the $50 reward amount in 2009, 195 in 2012, and 221 in 2013. One hundred dollars was the mode in three years: 2010, 2011, and 2014. Twenty-six creators chose the $100 reward amount in 2010, 111 in 2011, and 154 in 2014. These data are shown in Table 4.21.
TABLE 4.20. NUMBER OF PROJECTS BY UNIQUE REWARD DOLLAR AMOUNT Dollar Number Dollar Number of Dollar Number of Dollar Number of Amount of Projects Amount Projects Amount Projects Amount Projects 1 232 55 10 249 1 888 1 2 15 58 1 250 400 900 4 3 6 60 71 260 1 960 1 4 2 65 14 265 1 999 1 5 292 69 1 275 2 1,000 438 6 3 70 15 295 1 1,001 2 7 8 72 1 300 102 1,009 1 8 11 75 254 311 1 1,200 14 9 3 80 24 325 2 1,250 7 10 551 81 1 350 26 1,300 2 11 2 85 8 360 1 1,450 1 12 14 90 6 375 1 1,499 1 13 1 95 1 380 1 1,500 80 14 3 99 1 399 1 1,800 2 15 193 100 699 400 37 1,945 1 16 3 101 2 425 1 1,999 1 17 1 110 8 450 5 2,000 84 18 9 120 14 475 1 2,200 1 20 217 121 1 499 3 2,500 105 21 1 125 51 500 567 2,750 2 24 3 130 1 501 1 3,000 32 25 649 135 2 508 1 3,500 8 26 2 140 1 510 1 3,905 1 27 1 150 180 512 1 3,999 1 29 1 160 2 518 1 4,000 12 30 129 165 1 550 3 4,500 3 32 1 175 12 600 23 4,800 1 33 1 180 2 605 1 5,000 104 35 88 185 1 650 4 5,200 1 36 3 200 179 700 8 5,500 2 40 91 210 1 720 1 6,000 4 43 1 215 1 750 60 7,000 3 45 30 220 4 777 1 7,500 2 50 685 225 4 799 1 8,000 4 51 1 230 1 800 16 9,500 1 54 1 240 1 850 3 10,000 32
56
TABLE 4.21. STATISTICAL DATA FOR BREAKDOWN OF REWARDS (IN US DOLLARS) Minimum ($) Maximum ($) Median ($) Mode ($) 2009 1 2,000 50 50 2010 1 7,500 80 100 2011 1 10,000 60 100 2012 1 10,000 75 50 2013 1 10,000 75 50 2014 1 10,000 90 100 Total 1 10,000 75 100
Geographical Locations
In the United States, forty-two states and one federal territory were represented between 2009–2014. There were no projects from Alabama, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho,
Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, or Wyoming. New York had 227 projects, the most of any state. California had the next highest amount of projects at 146. The other states to round out the top five locations for projects were Massachusetts with sixty-one, Illinois with thirty-seven, and Texas with thirty-five. These data are shown in Table 4.22.
TABLE 4.22. OVERALL NUMBER OF PROJECTS BY STATE / TERRITORY Alaska 3 Massachusetts 62 Oregon 23 Arkansas 2 Maryland 21 Pennsylvania 30 Arizona 10 Maine 3 Rhode Island 1 California 148 Michigan 21 South Carolina 3 Colorado 14 Minnesota 22 South Dakota 1 Connecticut 20 Missouri 14 Tennessee 14 District of Columbia 17 Mississippi 1 Texas 35 Florida 14 North Carolina 16 Utah 7 Georgia 13 North Dakota 1 Virginia 17 Iowa 3 Nebraska 5 Vermont 5 Illinois 37 New Hampshire 2 Washington 23 Indiana 10 New Jersey 14 Wisconsin 21 Kansas 1 Nevada 3 West Virginia 1 Kentucky 4 New York 229 Louisiana 5 Ohio 23
57
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
Conclusions
This study provides a descriptive analysis of the successful classical music projects between 2009 and 2014 on the crowd-funding platform Kickstarter. Kickstarter hosted a total of 1,426 classical music projects between 2009 and 2014. The research shows that more projects were successful (919) than unsuccessful (404). The most successful year, in terms of money raised, number of backers, and communication from backers, was 2013 for almost all data fields. This success is due to the sheer number of projects created on the
Kickstarter platform in that year. The total number of created projects significantly dropped between 2013 (376) and 2014 (289) representing a 23.1 percent decrease in numbers of projects. This decrease in projects might be due to any number of circumstances, and warrants an extended look into the same statistics in years following those included in this study.
Interestingly, Kickstarter’s “Stats” page indicates that the success rate of music, as a broad category, is 50.08 percent. 58 However, classical music projects tend to succeed at
69.4 percent, almost twenty points higher than the average of all music categories combined. In 2010, the success rate was lower than all other years in the research sample, yet it was eight points higher than the average of the broad music category on Kickstarter.
58 “Stats,” Kickstarter, accessed March 14, 2016, https://www.kickstarter.com/help/stats?ref= about_subnav. 58
This research suggests that classical music fundraising is certainly thriving and has adapted to compensate for budget shortfalls in recent years.
All projects raised approximately 118 percent of their intended goal. In 2010, funding percentages peaked at 162 percent. This increase indicates that 2010 was outside of the trend and can be considered an outlier. Project goal amounts averaged slightly less than $5,000 per project, but more revealing is the disparity between the mean and median.
The median project goal amount for all years of the sample was $3,200. The average project goal amount skewed towards the higher end due to outliers above the $30,000 range.
However, should a person want to create a music project on Kickstarter, a suggested project goal amount of the statistical median (no more than $3,200) would likely be more successful. The outliers inherent in the sampling suggest that a project goal amount of
$5,000 may not be as successful even though there are successful classical music projects with goal amounts more than $3,200.
The stochastic nature of crowd-funding is certainly intimidating to potential project creators, but creators may ensure success if they choose an extremely low project goal amount. Should enough people back the project, the percentage raised may provide an unrealistic look into how much a project will raise. One such project, “Snow White Turns
Sixty :: Hollis sings Trumbore,” raised 28,013 percent ($4,202) of the project’s goal, but the project goal amount was a mere $15.59
The average number of dollars pledged per backer was $77.04 for all successful classical music projects. The average number of dollars pledged per backer divided by
59 Dale, Trumbore, “Snow White Turns Sixty :: Hollis sings Trumbore,” June 30, 2011, accessed July 29, 2016, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/daletrumbore/snow-white-turns-sixty-hollis-sings- trumbore/description.
59 years is presented in Table 5.1. Despite the fact there were half as many backers in 2014 than in 2013, the average pledge amount per backer increased. Although the year 2013 dominated the analysis in several data fields, the average dollar amount per backer in 2013 was the lowest figure outside of the first year. This decrease may be due to the sensational nature of the process for raising funds through social media, but does not explain the 2014 increase in average pledge amounts.
TABLE 5.1. AVERAGE DOLLARS PLEDGED PER BACKER 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Overall Dollar $63.83 $62.88 $81.77 $82.67 $66.31 $92.83 $77.04 Amounts
According to Kickstarter, projects less than thirty days in duration are better positioned to succeed, however classical music projects over all six years averaged thirty- four days in duration.60 The average duration decreased from 47.7 to 31 days through all years of the sampling. The average duration of projects is presented in Table 5.2. More interesting is the duration consistently decreases, and does not reverse or change direction throughout all years of the sampling. After 2011, project creators likely adhered to the guidelines of Kickstarter’s blog post about project duration. The median and mode for all classical music projects was thirty days, though sixty-nine creators chose the second most chosen duration, sixty days. There will always be creators who, against all research, will choose the maximum duration simply because the option is there. This willful blindness may be due to the anxiety inherent in any fundraising campaign. Will the fundraiser faithfully produce the sought-after funds in the allotted time? This research indicates that
60 Yancey Strickler, “Shortening the Maximum Project Length,” The Kickstarter Blog, June 17, 2011, accessed July 29, 2016, https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/shortening-the-maximum-project-length.
60 creators selecting project durations slightly more than thirty days will indeed still have a chance to succeed.
TABLE 5.2. AVERAGE DURATION OF PROJECTS (IN DAYS) 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Overall Duration 47.7 46.1 40.1 34.2 31.3 31.0 34.0
Ninety-four project creators launched a project campaign in May. A comparison of the starting and ending months is shown in Table 5.3. December was the least popular month to launch. Even though most campaigns ended in March (ninety-five), June was very close to the same number of ending campaigns as March. With most campaigns starting in
May and those campaigns likely ending in June, it may indicate a correlation with fine arts calendars. Musicians and ensembles typically plan events following an August through May or June calendar year. Should an individual or organization want to promote a campaign, it is logical to do it at the end of the year when more people are emotionally vested in the organization and before an extended summer break. If these creators started most projects at the end of the year, would the beginning of a performance year—September or August— have fewer project launches? The research indicates almost as many creators chose to begin a project in September. In fact, May and September were so close in numbers as to suggest creators should start in one of those months.
TABLE 5.3. POPULAR STARTING / ENDING MONTHS FOR PROJECTS (ABBREVIATED) 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Overall Starting Month Sept Nov Apr, Oct, Jul May Sept Feb May Ending Month Oct Jul, Oct, Dec Dec May Mar Dec Mar
61
The Start Day of Projects field yielded an interesting phenomenon. Other than a few days, project creators chose almost all days to begin a project equally. Only one day, the twenty-fourth, was slightly more popular than the others, while the thirty-first was by far the least popular to begin a project. This is likely due to the frequency with which the thirty-first occurs during a calendar year. Similarly, the Ending Day of Projects also had a common trend with almost all days being equally popular to end a project. However, the first day of a month was definitely the most popular to end a project. To begin a month on positive news like a successful campaign would help boost morale within an individual or organization.
Successful classical music campaigns overwhelmingly chose one of two campaign types: recording or performance. Over one-third of the sampling sought funds to professionally record an ensemble. Producing a concert was the next most chosen endeavor at 219 projects. It is understandable that these were the most chosen campaign type. At the present time, the quickest way to build a career is by producing a recording to use in promotional materials. Additionally, it takes a significant amount of resources to produce a concert, especially once an entity begins to factor in the cost of renting a performance venue. When formulating the research topic, it seemed likely that commissioning a composer might be the most highly ranked category. However, several commissioning projects cross-referenced other campaign types, diluting the results. For example, eight project campaigns commissioned composers, but also produced a performance to feature that composition. Eight project campaigns sought to commission a composer, but then wanted to professionally record the commission in a studio setting.
Considering a project campaign could be anything, several projects cross multiple
62 campaign streams. However, most project creators chose to have a singular vision by not diluting their project campaign type. This helps to provide clarity to the individual campaigns.
Nineteen total projects were so unique in their campaigns that it was difficult to classify them. One such project sought to raise funds as a way to purchase a laptop computer and video camera supplies, yet the creator considered it a classical music project.
In the same vein, another project creator sought funds to purchase recording equipment for their studio. All projects still satisfied the Kickstarter rules as creators used the purchased items to create a tangible product offered as a reward for backers.61
Kickstarter suggests that a creator use transparency and communication to engage their backers, as well as potential backers, through updates to the project. Most creators wrote at least two updates for their project, but the average was six updates. Perhaps more revealing is the activity of the backers themselves. Backers can leave comments on updates for the project creators. Projects averaged four comments per campaign, but most projects received no comments at all. The average number of comments was skewed by projects that received a high volume of comments. For example, one project in 2010 received 311 comments; another in 2013 received 1,344 comments. In other years, the project comments fell somewhere below thirty-seven comments per project.
Kickstarter provided a statistic suggesting that projects that included a video succeed at a higher rate than those without (50 percent versus 30 percent).62 This particular research does not compare unsuccessful to successful projects, but demonstrates
61 “Our Rules,” Kickstarter Project Rules, accessed July 29, 2016, https://www.kickstarter.com /rules?ref=footer. 62“Help Center,” Kickstarter Help Center, accessed July 29, 2016, https://www.kickstarter.com /help/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Search&term=video.
63 that eight out of every nine successful classical music projects did, in fact, include a video in their campaign. Considering that the overwhelming majority of creators included a video, it is reasonable to conclude that project creators should include a video in their campaign description. Projects with no video included can succeed, but it is significantly more difficult to connect the project’s story to the intended audience. Those particular projects may have to rely on the creator’s previously established audience in order to provide credibility to the project. With such an impersonal method of raising funds, the video also provides a sense of humanism to the digital campaign.
The average length of a video was three minutes, thirty-four seconds. However, that figure may be skewed as thirteen videos had durations longer than ten minutes. Roughly one in three creators included videos that lasted longer than the average. Shorter video durations may be watched more to completion due to the shorter durations and a smaller amount of time-investment for the consumers. Though this is not tracked in the present study, many people consume information through the use of their smartphone and the phone’s inherent integration with social media. If people watch crowd-funding videos on their phone, the video may necessarily need to be shorter in order to maximize the campaign’s message to the viewer.
Four out of nine project creators were individuals raising funds for their personal campaigns. Almost one-third of project creators (32 percent) were established organizations, including non-profit organizations or large performing ensembles.
Individuals acting on behalf of an organization or ensemble comprised two out of every nine projects (22.9 percent). Creators need to consider the ramifications of falling into the latter two categories. The Internal Revenue Service considers money raised through
64 crowd-funding as taxable income. If an individual raises funds for an organization or ensemble, would the tax obligations fall under the individual’s responsibility, or funneled to the organization/ensemble? At present, it seems the responsibility would fall under the individual even if that person did not have access to the money. For sake of security and transparency, it is recommended that organizations take the lead on branding the campaign under themselves rather than an individual.
As with the project description, the number and breakdown of reward levels is determined by the project creator. The average number of reward levels per project was eight, though the mode of reward levels was six. The most frequent reward amount was
$100, followed by $50, $25, $500, and $10. This research did not look into the number of backers per reward level, but this issue may be worth researching in the future to determine the most selected reward level. Seventy-five dollars was the average reward amount per project.
The east and west coasts of the United States dominated the geographical project locations. Illinois and Texas were also well-represented in numbers, though they do not come close to the amount of successful classical music projects in New York and California.
Project creators can potentially distort the findings for geographic locations. The creator designates the geographic location for each project and several projects in this research chose project locations other than their particular hometown. For example, a chamber choir project located in Quebec designated the location of their particular project as New
York City since they raised funds to perform in Carnegie Hall.63
63 Le Choeur de Chambre du Québec, “Chœur de chambre du Québec à Carnegie Hall 13 mars 2015,” November 6, 2014, accessed July 29, 2016, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2134030647/chur-de- chambre-du-quebec-a-carnegie-hall-13-mars?ref=discovery.
65
Characteristics of Successful Projects
The conclusions from this research demonstrate that success is possible when using
Kickstarter to crowd-fund a classical music project. If a person is interested in creating a crowd-funding project, knowing the traits of past successful music projects would likely help alleviate some of the uncertainty that naturally sets in when seeking money. With the findings from this research, characteristics of successful classical music projects can be simplified to the following traits:
1) Project goal amounts were around $3,200, but not more than $5,000.
2) Most successful projects raised between 109 to 114 percent of the intended goal.
3) The number of backers per project ranged between fifty to seventy-five.
4) Average project durations were thirty-four days.
5) May was the month most chosen to begin a project, and June was chosen to
complete the project campaign.
6) The twenty-fourth day of a month was the most popular day to begin a project
campaign, whereas the first day of a month was the most popular day to end a
campaign.
7) Making a recording and producing a performance made up over half of the
successful project campaigns.
8) Project creators contributed at least two project updates.
9) Almost all successful projects included a video that lasted at least three minutes.
10) There were more individuals who created a project than organizations.
66
11) Projects included at least eight reward tiers within their project. The reward dollar
amounts most often used were $1, $5, $10, $25, $50, $75, $100, $250, $500, and
$1,000.
12) More successful projects were in California and New York than anywhere else.
Recommendations for Further Research
This research is the first to describe the cultural phenomenon of internet-based crowd-funding on Kickstarter as it relates to classical music. Future research is needed to expand on the current findings:
1) The present study only focused on successful classical music projects within a narrow time frame from the beginning of Kickstarter in 2009 until 2014. Further research might focus on comparing the unsuccessful classical music projects data to the same time frame.
This type of research could also potentially identify certain traits or indicators for classical project creators looking to ensure a larger chance for success.
2) The present study could be replicated past 2014 in hopes of creating a more current depiction of the state of crowd-funding. Classical music organizations can certainly benefit from these data as budget line items can shift focus to other avenues of fundraising should crowd-funding become an unsustainable funding source or unpopular way to fund projects.
3) Several crowd-funding platforms parallel Kickstarter’s popularity. A similar descriptive analysis can be performed on competing crowd-funding platforms such as GoFundMe and
IndieGoGo. A study in competing platforms may reveal a propensity for more or less success on one of the internet sites.
67
4) This study limited the parameters to projects located in the United States. A similar study done on international projects could provide more clarity on the state of classical music crowd-funding on a global scale.
5) This study only considered classical music projects. Researching the impact of crowd- funding platforms on music projects in general will likely benefit all musicians. Through a more in depth analysis of the general music category, characteristics of music projects will provide a more accurate depiction of the state of financial support on a crowd-funding platform. Knowledge of trends will certainly reduce the overwhelming amount of decisions when creating a project.
6) It may be worthwhile for classically trained musicians to know what kinds of classical music is succeeding on crowd-funding platforms. Knowledge of the trends regarding certain styles or repertoires may reveal a propensity for specific styles to succeed over others.
Although internet-based crowd-funding is a newer form of raising money for artists, it was necessary to provide an analysis to determine the future of this new initiative. This research details the most common elements found amongst projects hosted on Kickstarter from 2009 to 2014. The information is useful and provides a foundation for future research on crowd-funding as it relates to music projects. People interested in creating a classical music project on Kickstarter may use some of these elements in the hopes of creating a successful campaign.
68
Because crowd-funding is relatively new, there is a certain amount of uneasiness that goes along with creating a project. Following the characteristics of successful projects will serve future project creators as a guideline for establishing an effective campaign.
However, as has been shown, such success is never guaranteed. Project creators should always not assume the project will succeed.
Crowd-funding is a culturally relevant way to seek funds. Several programs of music are offering entrepreneurship classes in order to set younger musicians on a path to successfully navigate a career in the arts. Including an opportunity to learn about crowd- funding will enable the musician to consider multiple prospects for establishing and maintaining a worthwhile career in the arts. Crowd-funding should also be included in any musician’s budget campaign as it can foster a closer relationship with the audience.
Ultimately, that should be the goal for all artists.
69
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adler, Charles, Perry Chen, and Yancey Strickler. “Creator Handbook.” Accessed March 14, 2016. https://www.kickstarter.com/help/handbook?ref=footer.
______. “Kickstarter Basics.” Accessed March 14, 2016. https://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/kickstarter+basics?ref=footer.
______. “Stats.” Kickstarter. Accessed February 15, 2015. https://www.kickstarter.com/help/stats?ref=footer.
Carlson, Nicholas. “At Last -- The Full Story of How Facebook was Founded.” Business Insider, March 5, 2010. Accessed July 29, 2016. http://www.businessinsider.com/how- facebook-was-founded-2010-3.
______. “The Real History of Twitter.” Business Insider, April 13, 2011. Accessed July 29, 2016. http://www.businessinsider.com/how-twitter-was-founded-2011-4.
Chmaj, Betty E. “Father Heinrich as Kindred Spirit: or, How the Log-House Composer of Kentucky became the Beethoven of America.” American Studies, 24, no. 2 (Fall 1983): 35-57.
Crawford, Richard. America’s Musical Life: A History. New York: Norton, 2001.
Cummings, Jr., Milton C. “Government and the Arts: An Overview.” In Public Money & The Muse: Essays on Government Funding for the Arts, edited by Stephen Benedict, 31-79. New York: Norton, 1991.
Edunov, Sergey, Carlos Diuk, Ismail Onur Filiz, Smriti Bhagat, and Moira Burke. “Three and a half degrees of separation.” Research at Facebook Blog, February 4, 2016. Accessed July 29, 2016. https://research.facebook.com/blog/three-and-a-half-degrees-of- separation/.
Eldridge, Andrew. “Kickstart Your Music Project with Crowd=Funding.” Clinic presentation, annual convention of Texas Music Educators Association, San Antonio, February 13, 2014.
The Grove Music Online, s.v. “New Music USA,” accessed February 15, 2015, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.ezproxy.tcu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/ A2259045?q=new+music+usa&search=quick&pos=1&_start=1#firsthit.
Heckman, Dan. “Making fans a part of the inner circle.” The Los Angeles Times, February 18, 2008. Accessed July 29, 2016. http://articles.latimes.com/2008/feb/10/entertainment/ca-schneider10. 70
Henderson, Jerry. The State and The Politics of Culture: A Critical Analysis of the National Endowment for the Arts. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 2005.
Hersey, Leigh Nanney. “The Give and Take of Public Funds on Private Gifts.” PhD diss., Arizona State University, 2009. Accessed February 15, 2015 on ProQuest.
Kickstarter. “Making Payments Easier for Creators and Backers.” The Kickstarter Blog, January 6, 2015. Accessed March 14, 2016. https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/making- payments-easier-for-creators-and-backers.
Kirkpatrick, David. The Facebook Effect. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010.
Miller, Kerry. “Teaching Musicians to be Entrepreneurs.” Bloomberg, March 28, 2007. Accessed July 29, 2016. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2007-03- 28/teaching-musicians-to-be-entrepreneursbusinessweek-business-news-stock- market-and-financial-advice.
Mollick, Ethan. “The dynamics of crowdfunding: an exploratory study.” Journal of Business Venturing 29 / 1 (2014): 1–16. Accessed February 15, 2015. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S088390261300058X
More Intelligent Life, H.D. “The Q&A: Perry Chen, Kickstarter.” The Economist Blog, October 22, 2010. Accessed April 6, 2016. http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2010/10/crowd-funding_art.
Roach, Brittni R. “Patronage and Power: Women as Leaders and Activists in American Music (1890–1940).” MA thesis, Kent State University, 2014. Accessed February 15, 2015 on ProQuest.
Strickler, Yancey. “Shortening the Maximum Project Length.” The Kickstarter Blog, June 17, 2011. Accessed July 29, 2016. https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/shortening-the- maximum-project-length.
University of Pennsylvania – Wharton. “Can You Spare a Quarter? Crowdfunding Sites Turn Fans into Patrons of the Arts.” Knowledge @ Wharton (blog), December 8, 2010. Accessed July 29, 2016. http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/can-you-spare-a- quarter-crowdfunding-sites-turn-fans-into-patrons-of-the-arts/.
Wallin, Inez Elizabeth. “Andrew Carnegie: Accumulator and Distributor of Wealth.” MA thesis, University of Southern California, 1938. Accessed February 15, 2015 on ProQuest. 71
APPENDIX A
RESULTS OF RESEARCH 72
For a digital copy of the research data, please use a search engine to locate my professional e-mail using the following search parameters:
Andrew Eldridge, Percussion
VITA
Personal Background Steven Andrew Eldridge, Jr. Born February 13, 1980 Married Jennifer Lynn Fast June 12, 2011 One child
Education Bachelor of Science, music education, Texas A&M University- Commerce, cum laude, 2003
Master of Music, percussion performance, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2005
Doctor of Musical Arts, percussion performance, Texas Christian University, 2016
Experience Adjunct Instructor of Percussion, Texas Wesleyan University, 2012-2015
Sabbatical Replacement, Professor of Percussion, Texas Christian University, Spring 2014
Adjunct Instructor of Theory, Texas Christian University, 2014- 2015
Senior Lecturer of Percussion/Director of Marching Percussion, University of Texas at Arlington, 2015-present
Professional Memberships Percussive Arts Society College Music Society Texas Music Educators Association Texas Bandmasters Association Pi Kappa Lambda Kappa Kappa Psi Phi Mu Alpha Tau Beta Sigma (Honorary member)
Abstract
Kickstarter is an internet-based platform for raising funds to support the creation or completion of a project. Through this website, an inspired person can create a project, and then may direct others to their project page to become backers of the project. Classical musicians have been using the website to raise funds for various projects since it began in
2009. To date, no research has examined the state of classical music fundraising via crowd- funding platforms.
The purpose of this descriptive analysis was to establish a baseline standard of the
919 classical music projects that were fully funded on Kickstarter from 2009 to 2014. A computer script was developed to compile research data and information from each project regarding the financials, duration of the campaign, creator classification, inclusion of a video, reward tiers, and geographical location. All necessary information was located on the project main campaign pages.
Results of this research reveal that classical music projects in this sample enjoyed a success rate of 64.5 percent. Descriptive statistics determined commonalities between successful projects, and a profile of the characteristic successful classical music project was established from the results of this research.
This research constituted a first effort to determine if crowd-funding a classical music project constitutes a reliable avenue for raising funds. Recommendations for further research include extending the research past the sample years, and comparing the successful campaigns on Kickstarter to the successful campaigns found on other popular crowd-funding platforms.