“I Would Do Anything for Funds, but I Won’t Do That”: On Artists’ Reluctance to Adopt Investment Crowdfunding and Possible Ways to Overcome It

Abstract Crowdfunding is an alternative project fundraising mechanism, facilitating the collection of small sums from many backers via the Internet. With growing competition for limited public cultural funds and other forms of sponsorship, artists have been exploring and even pioneering the adoption of crowdfunding. However, while the crowdfunding industry’s growth is propelled by interest in investment models offering fundraisers relatively large sums of money, artists have stayed away from this trend while focusing on non-investment models, which result in collecting modest sums from smaller circles of backers. The current chapter seeks to examine what is driving such a choice. It suggests the FPI (Fear-Prejudice-Ignorance) framework outlining mental barriers that trigger artists’ aversion to using investment models. The origin and implications of each of the framework’s barriers are discussed. Later, several methods for possibly addressing these barriers are suggested, including education, match-funding schemes, and functional integration.