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» NEW! » Loots, Piecyk & Wijngaarden - At the juncture of funding, policy, and technology

Ellen Loots, Kaja Piecyk & Yosha Wijngaarden (2024) At the juncture of funding, policy, and technology: how promising is match-funding of arts and culture through crowdfunding platforms?, International Journal of Cultural Policy, 30:1, 118-134, DOI: 10.1080/10286632.2023.2173746

Despite its ubiquity in arts and culture, crowdfunding has limitedly been instrumentalized in policy settings. Yet, with joint contributions by friends, fans, governments, and quasi-public institutions, match-funding of arts and culture through crowdfunding platforms may have benefits: increased revenues for makers and cultural fields, transparency in funding allocation, and stronger community engagement. Drawing upon interviews with regional and local match-funding entities in the Netherlands, we explain how and why they engage in match-funding and what is needed for the collaborative funding mechanism to thrive. Funders are attracted by match-funding’s potential to support relatively large numbers of hitherto underserved makers with relatively small amounts of money, complementary to other funding instruments. Aspects largely overlooked are match-funding’s capacity to leverage resources and install co-decisive processes of public funding allocation. Situated at the juncture of funding, policy, and technology, match-funding requires learning and experimentation with other than reward-based formats to unleash its democratizing potential.