Crowdfunding is not about you. It’s about the community around what you do. Your crowd. And there’s a difference between your audience and your crowd. Your crowd are the people personally, financially, and emotionally invested in you successfully completing your art project. They’re with you for the journey. They’re with you for your career.

Crowdfunding is the art of rallying your community to fund your project.

Remember, not everyone you ask to give will give, so even a modest crowdfunding campaign aiming to raise a few thousand dollars requires getting in front of thousands of people.Unless you’re famous in your own right or have strong social influence, it’s unlikely you’ve got immediate access to a network of this size. Here’s where PR comes to the party.

Social media is a handy marketing tool, but you don’t own your social media community. The visibility of your posts is at the mercy of social media algorithms. In other words, just because you publish a status update, doesn’t mean people see it. Furthermore, if the gods of digital decide to fold a platform, that’s your hard-earned followers gone in a blink.