50/50 — For Makers and Objectspace

A huge mihi to you all, our heartfelt thanks to everyone who has donated and shared this campaign. We are so grateful for all the love and support that you, our community, continue to show for Objectspace. Thank you.

And now, our eyes are set on the stretch goal – every donation over and above our initial target will go directly towards our ambitious plans for the future, for Makers and Objectspace.

It’s hard to talk about money. But learning from the conversations sparked by this campaign, we’ve realised that people don’t really know where ours comes from.

Objectspace is a charitable trust. Roughly a third of our annual operating budget comes from Creative New Zealand, while the rest is earnt through fundraising: philanthropy, sponsorships and smaller grants.

While our core function is to serve the fields of craft, design and architecture – to make exhibitions, provoke discourse, those good things – we spend a HUGE amount of time raising money. We’re relentless and ambitious fundraisers for an organisation our size, because more money raised means more resourcing to deliver our work (aka more money for makers!). And we mostly do this work behind-the-scenes, and don’t broadcast it to our wider community.

But, in response to the shaky landscape around funding (and the power of a campaign like this to grow awareness) we came up with this 50/50 fundraiser highlighting what and whom we are raising money for, and now, WE’VE ALMOST HIT TARGET!

Our heartfelt thanks for your donations and sharing – let's reach the finish line.

On Thursday night, we were joined by our community for some friendly competition to drive us closer to our fundraising target of $80k by 15 June. This marked the half-way point of 50/50 — For Makers and Objectspace.

The numbers: 70 bingo players (plus Tiny the chihuahua), 3 high-stakes Paper Scissors Rock battles, 7 celebrity callers and taking into account our match-gifts, $8,000 raised for makers and Objectspace! 

Our thanks to all those who came along, played and made donations, and to our callers: Alan Preston, Micheal McCabe, Graeme Burgess, Lindsay Yee, Benjamin Preston, Icao Tiseli and Judy Darragh. Find some videos of this fun night here. 

Fizzing! For those who couldn't be with us (esp. our Christchurch crowd!), you can recreate the vibe by donning a visor, playing Islands in the Stream by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers, and share our campaign on your socials to encourage others to support makers and Objectspace with a donation.

Drum-roll for another Objectspace first: we're hosting a Bingo Night!

What is a fundraiser without the most classic of all fundraising games, right?! So here we go, we're hosting our first-ever BOOSTER BINGO on Thursday 28 May, at Objectspace Tāmaki Makaurau, 13 Rose Road. 

Invite a mate or two to take your place in Martino Gamper’s Endgrained (limited seats!) and test your luck.

Special guests will join us to call the rounds and there will be seriously good prizes, including works by Aotearoa’s best makers (such as jewellery titans Judy Darragh and Warwick Freeman). One lucky person who makes a donation to boosted on the night will take away an Endgrained hook made by Martino Gamper.

Your $35 ticket includes 3 bingo cards, and you can purchase more cards throughout the evening – all proceeds will go towards our 50/50 fundraiser. Win/win!

Find out more and book your seat here: objectspace.org.nz/events/50-50-booster-bingo/

Only last Friday we launched our biggest crowdfunder to date - and today we're back to say NGĀ MIHI for the enthusiastic support out of the gate. Thanks to your donations (big and small), we've made it half-way to our target already.

Now is the time to give, to keep the momentum rolling. It's going to take a big push to get us to $80k over the next 24 days. Thanks to our generous match-givers, every donation will be doubled – please help us spread the good work and encourage your friends to join YOU in boosting both makers and Objectspace, and supporting the future of design, craft and architecture in Aotearoa.

A big mihi to you all, thank you.

Our heartfelt thanks to all our amazing seed funders whose donations have given us an amazing head start! 
Let's do this, whānau: Fifty Fifty for Makers and for Objectspace!