Morrie Warshawski on "crowd funding"

Morrie Warshawski, author of Shaking the Money Tree comments on something I wrote about Kickstarter.com.

"There's definitely a new paradigm, and "crowd funding" is one part of that.

"A more egalitatiran site for this for film is indiegogo.com. I believe that kickstart is by invitation only.

"I'm seeing more and more indie filmmakers try this type of fundraising. Unfortunately, the downside is that it doesn't normally raise "big" bucks, so it can only be part of the strategy used for raising support - unless you are doing a film of modest budget where $30 - $50K is considered major.

"When I did research for my new 3rd edition of SHAKING THE MONEY TREE (due out in January) I ran across Robert Greenwald's success in raising large amounts from thousands of small donations nationally for his work.

"The key to his success was his luck in being able to partner early with MoveOn.org, which has a huge email list.

As I say in my book, one important "shift" in thinking is to forget about chasing an "audience" and concetrate on creating a "community."

(Shaking the Money Tree is the classic among fund raising books for filmmakers.--TL)