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View all search resultsThrowing it to the crowd
Dina IndrasafitriTHE JAKARTA POST/JAKARTAUS President Barack Obama used it, many artists worldwide are using it and now a number of creative minds in Indonesia are beginning to use crowdfunding methods to help finance their projects
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Dina Indrasafitri
THE JAKARTA POST/JAKARTA
US President Barack Obama used it, many artists worldwide are using it and now a number of creative minds in Indonesia are beginning to use crowdfunding methods to help finance their projects.
For years, some local artists have been relying on various donors and sponsors to provide large sums of money or other forms of financial aid to help realize their projects, but crowdfunding websites such as Wujudkan.com and patungan.net are now providing alternatives for artists in need of financial boosts.
Wujudkan basically means “to make something a reality”, while patungan is a term describing the activity of “chipping in” to attain a certain amount of money.
Through crowdfunding approaches, artists can seek help from individuals, who can donate as little as Rp 5,000 (54 US cents), to the projects featured on the websites.
According to their official statement, Wujudkan.com seeks to encourage public participation to
develop Indonesia’s creativity.
“With Wujudkan.com, everyone can be involved actively and not merely be a passive consumer,” Mandy Marahimin, one of the website’s founders, told The Jakarta Post recently.
The site Patungan.net describes itself as a “facility in cyber world to encourage Indonesia’s entrepreneurial performance development”.
Enrico Halim, Patungan.net’s coordinator, said the crowdfunding effort would hopefully give Indonesian creative workers the necessary support apart from the thumbs-up people give on Facebook.
Crowdsourcing.org, a website that offers information on crowdfunding, describes the method as “an approach to raising capital for new projects and businesses by soliciting contributions from a large number of stakeholders following three types of crowdfunding models: (1) Donations, Philanthropy and Sponsorship, where there is no expected financial return, (2) Lending and (3) Investment in exchange for equity, profit or revenue sharing.”
Examples of crowdfunding websites include Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com), which dubs itself as the “world’s largest funding platform for creative projects”, and Indiegogo (http://www.indiegogo.com/).
President Obama is known to have benefited from small donors for his presidential campaign as has the Democratic Party.
An article dated Nov. 11, 2011, on the Washington Post’s website said “A Washington Post analysis shows that nearly half of his [Obama’s] campaign contributions, and a quarter of the money he has raised for the Democratic Party, has come from donors giving less than US$200. That’s much higher than it was in 2008 and far beyond what the best-funded Republicans have managed.”
Obama recently signed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, of which part is said to make things easier for startups looking to raise funds through crowdfunding.
Mandy said that at first she too was inspired by international crowdfunding websites.
“I used to put aside $20 every month to donate to a crowdfunding website, but after a few times, I thought ‘why should I donate my money to American projects [instead of Indonesian ones]? And why are there no such websites in Indonesia?’” she said.
Indonesian artists can possibly benefit more through using local crowdfunding sites because, according to Mandy, nationalism still plays a role in donation choices. Thus, people usually prefer to give money to projects in their own countries.
Wujudkan.com is currently featuring two projects on its site. One is an album of children’s songs by the group Popzzle, the other a big screen movie titled Atambua 39° Celsius by Riri Riza and Mira Lesmana.
Those seeking funding for their projects are required to fill out the form provided on the site. Should projects be selected to feature on the website, the creators will receive a working agreement with Wujudkan.com to sign.
The maximum fundraising period through Wujudkan.com is three months, and the method follows the “all or nothing” system. Thus, money will only be channeled to the project owner if they succeed in achieving the targeted amount.
“If the project fails to reach the targeted amount, there are two choices. The project owner might stop the project and the money will be transferred back to the contributors, or the project owner can make another project on Wujudkan.com and we will email the contributors asking whether they want to continue their support or not,” Mandy said.
The next project might be similar to the old one or a new one altogether, she added.
Patungan.net’s FAQ page, meanwhile, said should a project fail to reach the target, the site’s curator will choose the funds gathered to be given to one or more other projects unsuccessful in their attempts to gather the targeted amount of money.
Both Patungan.net and Wujudkan.com have a policy of taking 5 percent out of the pooled funds only if the targeted amounts are reached.
Donors are entitled to special rewards, with the value usually depending on the donations given.
These “rewards” may range from a finished product, such as a CD or merchandise, having their names mentioned in a movie’s credits, to being credited as a co-executive producer in the case of Atambua 39°Celsius.
According to their owners and founders, crowdfunding websites are still taking baby steps, with Wujudkan.com still in its “beta” form and, being a mere few months old, plenty of work lies ahead.
One of the challenges to overcome is the payment method, which, up to now, still uses ATMs to transfer the donations.
“This becomes a problem when someone already pledged to donate but there is the additional effort of going to the ATM,” Mandy said.
Patungan.net’s Enrico said that at times the staff at Patungan.net has to assist project owners who are still in the dark about providing multimedia to promote their work.
Nevertheless, the crowdfunding mediators remain optimistic, and there are already success stories.
The Peduli Musik Anak (Care for Children’s Music) movement, which distributes free CDs containing children’s songs along with a CD cover explaining the importance of music in children’s education, reached the Rp 5 million target on Patungan.net required to produce and distribute 1,000 more CDs after its stock of 3,000 ran out.
The team behind collaborative theater show Goyang Penasaran (The Obsessive Twist) recently reaped success by surpassing their $3,000 target on their Indiegogo.com page. The money will be used to bring the show to Jakarta after it played in Yogyakarta.
As of Tuesday, the project had collected $3,102 with 23 hours left before the deadline.
Whether this is the beginning of many more successful crowdfunding stories, however, is yet to be known. “I do hope Indonesians have a high concern for art and the creative,” Mandy said of the fundraising method’s prospects.
Offering help: Crowdfunding sites like patungan.net are providing alternatives for artists in need of financial boosts. US President Barack Obama used it, many artists worldwide are using it and now a number of creative minds in Indonesia are beginning to use crowdfunding methods to help finance their projects.
For years, some local artists have been relying on various donors and sponsors to provide large sums of money or other forms of financial aid to help realize their projects, but crowdfunding websites such as Wujudkan.com and patungan.net are now providing alternatives for artists in need of financial boosts.
Wujudkan basically means “to make something a reality”, while patungan is a term describing the activity of “chipping in” to attain a certain amount of money.
Through crowdfunding approaches, artists can seek help from individuals, who can donate as little as Rp 5,000 (54 US cents), to the projects featured on the websites.
According to their official statement, Wujudkan.com seeks to encourage public participation to develop Indonesia’s creativity.
“With Wujudkan.com, everyone can be involved actively and not merely be a passive consumer,” Mandy Marahimin, one of the website’s founders, told The Jakarta Post recently.
The site Patungan.net describes itself as a “facility in cyber world to encourage Indonesia’s entrepreneurial performance development”.
Enrico Halim, Patungan.net’s coordinator, said the crowdfunding effort would hopefully give Indonesian creative workers the necessary support apart from the thumbs-up people give on Facebook.
Crowdsourcing.org, a website that offers information on crowdfunding, describes the method as “an approach to raising capital for new projects and businesses by soliciting contributions from a large number of stakeholders following three types of crowdfunding models: (1) Donations, Philanthropy and Sponsorship, where there is no expected financial return, (2) Lending and (3) Investment in exchange for equity, profit or revenue sharing.”
Examples of crowdfunding websites include Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com), which dubs itself as the “world’s largest funding platform for creative projects”, and Indiegogo (http://www.indiegogo.com/).
President Obama is known to have benefited from small donors for his presidential campaign as has the Democratic Party.
An article dated Nov. 11, 2011, on the Washington Post’s website said “A Washington Post analysis shows that nearly half of his [Obama’s] campaign contributions, and a quarter of the money he has raised for the Democratic Party, has come from donors giving less than US$200. That’s much higher than it was in 2008 and far beyond what the best-funded Republicans have managed.”
Obama recently signed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, of which part is said to make things easier for startups looking to raise funds through crowdfunding.
Mandy said that at first she too was inspired by international crowdfunding websites.
“I used to put aside $20 every month to donate to a crowdfunding website, but after a few times, I thought ‘why should I donate my money to American projects [instead of Indonesian ones]? And why are there no such websites in Indonesia?’” she said.
Indonesian artists can possibly benefit more through using local crowdfunding sites because, according to Mandy, nationalism still plays a role in donation choices. Thus, people usually prefer to give money to projects in their own countries.
Wujudkan.com is currently featuring two projects on its site. One is an album of children’s songs by the group Popzzle, the other a big screen movie titled Atambua 39° Celsius by Riri Riza and Mira Lesmana.
Those seeking funding for their projects are required to fill out the form provided on the site. Should projects be selected to feature on the website, the creators will receive a working agreement with Wujudkan.com to sign.
The maximum fundraising period through Wujudkan.com is three months, and the method follows the “all or nothing” system. Thus, money will only be channeled to the project owner if they succeed in achieving the targeted amount.
“If the project fails to reach the targeted amount, there are two choices. The project owner might stop the project and the money will be transferred back to the contributors, or the project owner can make another project on Wujudkan.com and we will email the contributors asking whether they want to continue their support or not,” Mandy said.
The next project might be similar to the old one or a new one altogether, she added.
Patungan.net’s FAQ page, meanwhile, said should a project fail to reach the target, the site’s curator will choose the funds gathered to be given to one or more other projects unsuccessful in their attempts to gather the targeted amount of money.
Both Patungan.net and Wujudkan.com have a policy of taking 5 percent out of the pooled funds only if the targeted amounts are reached.
Donors are entitled to special rewards, with the value usually depending on the donations given.
These “rewards” may range from a finished product, such as a CD or merchandise, having their names mentioned in a movie’s credits, to being credited as a co-executive producer in the case of Atambua 39°Celsius.
According to their owners and founders, crowdfunding websites are still taking baby steps, with Wujudkan.com still in its “beta” form and, being a mere few months old, plenty of work lies ahead.
One of the challenges to overcome is the payment method, which, up to now, still uses ATMs to transfer the donations.
“This becomes a problem when someone already pledged to donate but there is the additional effort of going to the ATM,” Mandy said.
An alternative: Wujudkan means “to make something a reality”, with artists able to seek money through the site from individuals who can donate as little as Rp 5,000 (54 US cents). Patungan.net’s Enrico said that at times the staff at Patungan.net has to assist project owners who are still in the dark about providing multimedia to promote their work. 
Nevertheless, the crowdfunding mediators remain optimistic, and there are already success stories.
The Peduli Musik Anak (Care for Children’s Music) movement, which distributes free CDs containing children’s songs along with a CD cover explaining the importance of music in children’s education, reached the Rp 5 million target on Patungan.net required to produce and distribute 1,000 more CDs after its stock of 3,000 ran out.
The team behind collaborative theater show Goyang Penasaran (The Obsessive Twist) recently reaped success by surpassing their $3,000 target on their Indiegogo.com page. The money will be used to bring the show to Jakarta after it played in Yogyakarta.
As of Tuesday, the project had collected $3,102 with 23 hours left before the deadline.
Whether this is the beginning of many more successful crowdfunding stories, however, is yet to be known. “I do hope Indonesians have a high concern for art and the creative,” Mandy said of the fundraising method’s prospects.
