Poetry, an app called The Disappearing and Crowdfunding. Intriguing? I found it so! Today we feature a writing project that found success with their crowdfunding project on Australian platform Pozible.
The Red Room Company is a not-for-profit organisation that creates, publishes and promotes poetry in unusual ways. Their poetry education program, Papercuts, takes working poets into primary and secondary schools across Australia; and Unlocked uses poetry to help improve literacy and self-expression in correctional centres.
Today Tim Grey from The Red Room answers some questions. Tim Grey not only handles the dark arts of media and communications, he also lends his hand to producing The Red Room Company’s major public projects. With both pen and camera, Tim has worked as a journalist and editor on a number of titles in Australia and abroad. At the University of Wollongong he studied French Poetry and German Philosophy, and at UTS he studied Australian reporting. He writes poetry.
Crowdfund it: Can you tell me about The Disappearing?
Grey: The Disappearing is a project that seeks to map the entire country with poetry. We asked writers to take inspiration from people, places and things that were beginning to vanish. Then, we took those poems and situated them on an interactive map that readers can explore via their smartphone or tablet.
Crowdfund it: Your project on Pozible was for the second stage of The Disappearing. How did you fund the Sydney-based app that is currently available?
Grey: For the first phase of The Disappearing, The Red Room Company approached partners such as The Historic Houses Trust and the Australia Council to help fund the project. We worked very closely with The Historic Houses Trust to develop the project on a creative level, so the partnership was really more about finding organisations we wanted to collaborate with then raising funds.
Crowdfund it: Why did you release a poetry app?
Grey: Using an app as a publishing platform wasn’t merely an exercise in novelty or a gimmick – it really was the most effective way to achieve what we wanted in terms of exploring poetry in place. That said, poetry is a medium that hasn’t really moved into the app or ebook realm as of yet, so it was important to us that we engage and experiment with the medium.
Crowdfund it: Why did you choose crowdfunding to expand the app from covering just Sydney to Australia wide?
“One of our fundamental values is that we pay artists fairly for their work and to create employment opportunities for poets.”
Grey: The Red Room Company is a not-for-profit organisation that relies on the generosity of supporters to help create projects. One of our fundamental values is that we pay artists fairly for their work and to create employment opportunities for poets. Over the years, there has been a lot of people who’ve taken part in projects by The Red Room Company – and, there has been a huge number of people who’ve kindly donated their time and money to help our cause. Crowdfunding seemed like a natural fit with our other fundraising efforts (it’s a fairly new phenomenon!). Plus, the great majority of the money raised for The Disappearing goes straight back into the poetry community, so it made sense to ask poets and readers to support the project.
Crowdfund it: Have you been happy with the results of your experiment?
“…we think our app works beautifully; it’s an elegant solution to the problem of reading poetry digitally.”
Grey: We’ve been thrilled with the response to The Disappearing! Poetry is often discussed as though it’s marginal, but when we 
do project like this it always demonstrates just how many people are reading and writing the stuff. There have been well over 700 entries to the project thus far, and even larger numbers of readers. Plus, we think our app works beautifully; it’s an elegant solution to the problem of reading poetry digitally.
Crowdfund it: How did you plan for your project before sending it live?
Grey: We planned our project pretty carefully before we sent it live. Firstly, the team at ArtSupport were extremely helpful in ensuring we didn’t make a total hash of the process – drilling us on the importance of planning beforehand. All individual artists and arts organisations all have access to ArtSupport, who’ll help them come up with strategies to access philanthropic funding. You can find out more at their website.
One of the things their team continued to reiterate was that while you might have an extremely active first and last week, your crowdfunding campaign is likely to have a fallow period right in the middle. So, we ensured that we had enough interesting stuff going on in that ‘down’ period.
Apart from having a clear outline and timeline of how we wanted the campaign to pan out over the four weeks, it was important to have all of the material – press releases, copy, image designs, communications and a video – all ready to go before we launched. We actually decided to delay the campaign for a couple of weeks to ensure that everything was ready before launch, and in retrospect, are really glad we did.
Crowdfund it! Perks are often an important factor in crowdfunding – how did you decide what perks to choose?
Grey: Well, what’s the secret of giving a good gift? Choosing something you’d want yourself?
Crowdfund it: Did your backing come from within your inner network – people you know – or the wider network – your fans on 
Facebook or Twitter? Did any ‘strangers’ support the project?
Grey: We were hugely gratified by the response, and by the range of people who pledged their support. Yes, family, friends and long-time supporters certainly played an important role. But, we also had an amazingly generous response from people who had been involved in our projects in the past, people who might have been audiences previously and – critically – friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter.
Crowdfund it: Why do you think your project succeeded when others fail to meet funding?
Grey: I can’t really say. But, I imagine that it’d be pretty easy to get over-ambitious with your funding goal, which would be a problem given that crowdfunding generally uses an all-or-nothing model. ArtSupport’s research showed that on average, 10 percent of the people you contact will pledge $50. It’s probably a good idea to set a funding goal with that in mind.
It was also really important to us to ensure that we were asking people to support something that was really worthwhile. Because it’s free, because it supports good writing, and because it puts funding back into the poetry community, we also really hoped that our supporters would see The Disappearing as a genuinely valuable project.
Crowdfund it: If you had your time over, is there anything you would change about the campaign? Was there anything you learnt about crowdfunding that you didn’t expect?
Grey: No, we wouldn’t change a thing. We were thrilled with the response we received from our supporters for The Disappearing campaign.
Crowdfund it: Would you use crowdfunding again?
Grey: Absolutely, we’d consider using crowdfunding again, although we don’t want to hassle our friends again too soon…
Crowdfund it: Where can we buy The Disappearing and when will the Australia-wide version be available?
Grey: The Disappearing is totally free, and it’s available for download in the iTunes Store or Google Play now. There will be 60 new poems up within the next few weeks.
Crowdfund it: Thank you Tim! I’ll update this post when the new poems are available.
You can view The Red Room Company website, follow them on Facebook or Twitter, read the blog of Founder and Artistic Director Johanna Featherstone, buy one of their limited editions of unique handmade objects and publications, enjoy their Flickr photos and subscribe to their YouTube Channel!
Read the report by Artsupport Australia called ‘How to work the crowd: A snapshot of barriers and motivations to crowdfunding‘.
To read more inspiring case studies of successful crowdfunders around the globe purchase a copy of Crowdfund it! directly from the publisher website for $7. It is also available on ReadCloud bookseller partners, Amazon, Kobo, iBookstore, Booki.sh partner booksellers, Booku, and Bkclub.
Author: Anna Maguire, November 2012