This guide by Voluntary Arts provides advice on crowdfunding for voluntary arts and cultural groups. The guide is now quite old (2011), but we’ll leave it live as it still contains useful ideas.

Crowdfunding is an alternative to traditional ways of financing your project or business, and it works by using the collective support of many people – the crowd – who provide lots of small sums of money which, when collected together, becomes a large sum.

Platforms such as Crowdfunder can even offer youth theatre groups more than one way to raise money for a project. Beyond straightforward donations, you can offer rewards to encourage supporters to back your campaign, or support prize draws, a licensed way to raise funds by offering a prize in exchange for an entry fee, often raising more per supporter than a standard campaign.