THIS IS DEAD

I’ve always felt a bit weird asking for money, it’s that working class chip on my shoulder that says ‘if you can’t make your own way then you are in the wrong game’ but increasingly asking for the dollar has become a normal part of my working day.

Whether applying for funding from the Arts Council, justifying my charity status to the charity commission or crowd funding I have become the arts equivalent of a charity street mugger.

As government funding pots for the arts shrink and local government arts budgets cut we are being encouraged by Arts Council England and local authorities to find alternative funding streams, many of us have began to crowd fund our ideas.

My idea is to equip my Grandad with skills in making art so he can develop work that addresses ageism and the invisibility of people over 60 in the UK and Ireland. I tried getting money from Arts Council England but it didn’t tickle their fancy (too many unknowns – I get that), Arts Council Ireland won’t fund it because Grandad has lived in London for too long. I even approached a festival in Northern Ireland who said it wasn't queer enough. Crowd funding was my only option.

Crowd funding campaigns require a lot of time, energy and content but most importantly they need to be the right sort of project. They need to enthuse, engage and stimulate an audience to part with a tenner or more. Last month I set up my idea on WeFund with a project I thought would do just that.

Stephen Fry, Rankin and even a Loose Woman have all tweeted about the project (Tracey Emin was too busy to tweet about it, apparently). It’s been in the local posh paper and on one of Irelands biggest websites (receiving 20,000 hits on there alone). I’ve taken out Facebook adverts, people have shared pictures of my Grandad over 150 times, its been retweeted to an inch of its life and after a 21 day campaign I’ve rustled up just 29% of the funding with 10 days to find £4,300. If I don't reach the £5.8k target I don't receive any of the donations.

I’m not sure why my crowd funder hasn’t captured the imaginations of the masses - a friend of mine who was looking for £10k received almost £30k to make a coffee table book about sexy ginger men.

I started to think ‘what have I done wrong?’ I relooked at my campaign, tweaked, rehashed, up’d my game and Facebook budget – still no donations.

I began to wonder if the people who this would feel important to, the over 60’s used the internet. Perhaps the fact the UK is amongst the worst countries in Europe for ageism has something to do with it – Or maybe people just don’t like the sound of my idea?

This got me thinking about the increasing popularity of funding work like this. If crowd funding becomes commonplace what does this do for the arts? Do we become those people on Dragons Den who are all trying to invent the next Dyson? Does the work become beige, sterile, profit driven and safe? Do we all start making work about sexy ginger people?

Yesterday I pitched an article to Guardian to address the above but using bigger words - their response was ‘we can't really run a failure piece unless it's failed’, they went on to mention how it could look like I was attempting to save my bacon. I told them I was OK with that, of course the reason why I want to write something for nothing and spend a working day doing it is to somehow stop me rocking up to my Grandad’s flat saying I’m sorry.

Deflated, confused and facing the possibility of failure I decided to run home to Mum’s to assess the damage.

I don’t want this blog to sound like a complete moan fest. Read it as a warning for any one thinking of getting into this murky world of ‘please…’. It’s a rollercoaster of emotions that will have you pressing the refresh button 8 hours a day.

This process has turned me into a mental person. I’m comparing my own campaigns with others, checking out who has funded who and which of my friends have ignored it all; I’ve even invented scenarios in my head of confrontations with them. Weird.

Online philanthropy isn't the cheque writing, PayPal giving game of Victoriana. If you are considering getting a crowd to fund you make sure your idea is accessible enough for people to give a shit. A straight forward ‘this is a book’ works because the confrontation is minimal, and you’ll get a book if you donate enough.

Tonight I have a list of pubs to call that my Grandad used to frequent, Friday I am on BBC London, Mum is trying to encourage the 1000 of Gallaghers in Ireland to donate and I’m going to sell my records and turn table on EBay to raise a few quid - all is not lost.

Whatever happens next I need to know I’ve done all I can - I won’t give up with out a fight. Passion, shamelessness and determination are crowd funding’s real currency.

Be prepared for failure, be surprised by success.

www.RealLiamGallagher.co.uk