Few would actually donate money to their favorite artist to fund a new album or movie
In recent years, crowdfunding, "the practice of funding a project or venture by raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the internet", has become a viable way to finance all manner of project. Several celebrities even, including actor Zach Braff and musician Amanda Palmer, have raised million of dollars to make, respectively, a new movie and a new album.
Despite Braff and Palmer's success, new research from YouGov shows that the vast majority of Americans would not give money to their favorite musician or actor to help fund a project that would otherwise not have enough funding to be made.
If their favorite artist was asking for donations, only 2% of Americans would "definitely" donate, while 13% would "probably" donate. On the other hand, 69% would "probably not" or "definitely not" donate.
There was some variation across age in the results: 21% of those below 45 might donate, while only 7% of those above 65 potentially would. Even so, clear majorities across all demographics would not donate.
As for how much they might donate, the majority of Americans who were inclined to give to their favorite artists said they would donate somewhere between $5 and $25.
In June 2012, musician Amanda Palmer raised $1.2 million to fund a new album, book and tour. This was significantly more than the $100,000 goal Palmer had originally set and was a Kickstarter record at the time. Last month, actor and director Zach Braff raised $3.1 million to fund a sequel to his 2004 film, Garden State.
Complete results are available here.
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