Social media is a handy marketing tool, but you don’t own your social media community. The visibility of your posts is at the mercy of social media algorithms. In other words, just because you publish a status update, doesn’t mean people see it. Furthermore, if the gods of digital decide to fold a platform, that’s your hard-earned followers gone in a blink.

Crowdfunding is the art of rallying your community to fund your project.

Crowdfunding is not about you. It’s about the community around what you do. Your crowd. And there’s a difference between your audience and your crowd. Your crowd are the people personally, financially, and emotionally invested in you successfully completing your art project. They’re with you for the journey. They’re with you for your career.

Running a successful crowdfunding campaign requires many skills. But you don’t have to do it all by yourself. In fact, you’re more likely to succeed if you don’t fly solo, because team driven campaigns raise 38% more than solo campaigns.