Now is the exciting part! Deciding on your fundraising strategy and which funding options you will pursue to raise the necessary funds for your film.
Your fundraising strategy is a list of your intended sources, or funding options, for your project and is an essential part of your pre-production preparations.
Why You Need A Fundraising Strategy
To guide you
You may be feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of garnering the funds you need to make your documentary film and launch it out into the world, so forming a fundraising strategy will take away that concern and help you to build a strategic plan with which to move forward. Your fundraising strategy therefore becomes a guide or blueprint for you, the filmmaker.
Film proposal and Grant applications
Another use for your fundraising strategy is within your film proposal and grant applications. Your fundraising strategy shows potential funders, or others interested in supporting your project, that you have a well considered and multifaceted plan for raising funds to get your film to completion and beyond.
What Are Your Funding Options?
Your list of funding options is immense, as is the range in amounts you can raise. The ways in which you fund your film are only limited by your imagination and the resources (time, money and energy) you wish to put into them.
Some ideas include:Â
* You could hold a house party or a yard sale
* Be sponsored to climb a mountain or bike the west coast of the USA
* You could host a music show or sell merchandise on your website
* You could find corporate sponsors or pre-sell your film
And the list goes on...Â
Some of these funding options may be a little outside the box, but you can, and should, be as adventurous and open minded as possible. We will cover some of the more conventional funding options below, and have a more in depth break down of several of them in the tutorials that follow.
Your Conventional Funding Options
Individual DonationsÂ
Individual donations are just as the name suggests individuals who donate to your film project. They make up over 75% of charitable giving in the US each year so should certainly be a consideration in your fundraising strategy. Often receiving a donation from an individual involves you, the filmmaker or someone from your team, making a connection with a person who then commits to financially contribute to your project. This can be a personal connection or through your various promotional platforms, such as, social media or your website.
Grants and FoundationsÂ
A grant is a sum of money given to your film by an organization, perhaps a government organization or a foundation, to assist you in moving your film forward. Grants can often be awarded stipulating the particular phase of your film that the funding should be applied to, this can include, but is not limited to, development, production, post-production or distribution phases.
Businesses and Corporate Sponsorships
Businesses and corporations, will occasionally give money to projects that exhibit a strong potential audience, which is in alignment with their target consumer. The stipulation being that an opportunity exists to increase their revenue or their brand awareness and promote their company favorably.  It is much more likely, especially with small businesses, that goods or in-kind services will be donated to your film project rather than cold hard cash.
CrowdfundingÂ
This is a resource whereby you set up an online platform either through your film's website or on an established crowdfunding site, and effectively pitch your project to those who view your campaign. You are asking a crowd of people to each chip in a small amount of money to assist you in reaching a larger financial goal.
Fundraising Events
Fundraising events can include anything from an at home dinner party to a musical event or venue party, to a well organized yard sale. Anything that you host, organize and promote which brings people to a certain location, whether online or in real-life, at a certain time to raise funds for your film, is a fundraising event.
Note: We go into much greater detail on what these funding option entail, how you can achieve significant financial support and how they can help you in addition to fiscal assistance within the next few tutorials. |
How To Construct Your Fundraising Strategy
Once you are fully armed with the knowledge of what your funding options are and what it will entail to achieve them you will be better informed to construct your fundraising strategy.
We recommend you watch the following tutorials and decide if any of these conventional funding options appeal to you.
We also recommend you and your team brainstorm some possible, but more unorthodox, funding options and then delve a little deeper into each that seem viable or interesting to you. Put together some notes and details of what each would entail to take to fruition.
You should know how much funding you need before you construct your fundraising strategy, so you are aware of how much you will need to raise. You will need to consult your documentary film budget for this figure.
Your fundraising strategy may look a little like this:
SOURCE | AMOUNT |
Crowdfunding | $20,000 |
Grant Funding | $25,000 |
Yard Sale | $5,000 |
Fundraising Events (House Party) | $8,000 |
Sponsorships | $7,000 |
TOTAL | $65,000 |
Note: These figures are a guide only, but the format should give you an idea of how your fundraising strategy could look.
Some Other Important Considerations
In this video we discuss some things you will want to take into account when deciding on which funding options are best for you and your project.