Two lines to add to your funding requests that will make the rest of your letter more persuasive
Published: Sat, 02/23/19
One of the things we professional artists have to think about is how to ask for more money from patrons without offending them.
I know of a guy who lost half his sponsor base overnight after sending a letter to his biggest benefactor, and it threw his entire world into chaos.
The patron resented the request because it made her feel like an ATM machine.
She then made it her mission to warn all of her connections in the Art World to stay away from that artist. Within a week, almost half of his studio funding dried up.
I was never able to confirm whether this had anything to do with it, but he also started getting mysterious rejections on a lot of the grants he applied for -- something that had never happened to him before.
But what I do know is this:
A few months later, he had to stop making art full time and get a day job to keep up with his mortgage.
Anyway, you can’t control whether or not a patron decides to fund a particular project, but you CAN make sure they don’t shun you for asking.
How?
By adding these two sentences to your correspondence that ensures patrons always look forward to your next letter even if they decide not to fund this particular project.
And most of the time, if they can’t fund the project themselves, they will go out of their way to find someone in their network who can.
It’s an old-school fundraising technique used by the Kabakovs that practically guarantees your letters will be read with pleasure and responded to kindly.
And guess what?
I will tell you all about the details of this technique in my webinar on 25 Feb 2019 at 7.00pm EST:
“Donor-Based Funding for Artists”
But, spots are limited.
And, in fact, we already have more people registered than space available in the live session. I suggest registering at the link below, and getting on at least 20 minutes early to secure your seat.
Here is the link:
Click here to register automatically for the free webinar
See you there!
Brainard
PS: The webinar will only be recorded for those that register, so click the link above even if you can’t make it to the live session.
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