Case Study

A4 Sounds

“A4 Sounds” is a non-profit artist-run workspace and gallery in north-inner-city Dublin. It is one of the biggest artist-led spaces in Ireland, currently providing facilities and professional development supports to 80 artists. Their mission is to transform the means by which cultural works are produced, accessed, and understood in Ireland, and by doing so to contribute to the development of a more just society. Guided by feminist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, and LGBT-inclusive politics, “A4 Sounds” supports artists and activists who fight for change.

“A4 sounds” was looking to raise funds for their studio space to have their electric system upgraded.

“We want to provide a safe and supportive environment for our member artists, communities that access our space and audiences who attend our events.

Over the past 4 years we have refurbished a 5500 sq ft industrial building into a modern artist studio with studio spaces, large build workshop, photography darkroom, screen-printing darkroom and facilities, print area, project room, electronics area, meeting room and artist library. We have invested thousands of euros of personal capital, thousands of hours of sweat equity, and reinvested the majority of membership fees paid to us into the building. Now we need a little bit of help from the outside.

During 2017 we focused a lot of time in securing a long-term lease for the building to ensure that value for money was guaranteed when investing into the building itself. In Jan 2018 we secured a 10-year lease and this means for the next 10 years we can confidently continue to provide safe and affordable studio space to artists working in Dublin. That is only 50c per year for each fiver donated!

Goals & Process

In 2017 “A4 sounds” were awarded €22.8K in capital funding to upgrade the electrical wiring and to install a new fire alarm system in their building. That was 70% of the total cost of the works and the max they could apply for. In order to carry out the necessary upgrades to the building, they needed to match the remaining 30% of the cost which is 10K.

Why did you choose this funding type?

This was a crowdfunding campaign that was part donation based and reward based and was hosted on Indiegogo.

Successes & Challenges

The rewards for this campaign were very creative. If you donated €20 you could get your own “A4 sounds €20 note print” and for €50 you could get a socket named after you with its own tiny brass plaque with your name engraved on it above the socket.

The people involved in creating the campaign are all artists or creative in some way so they all used their own talents to create the rewards which really helped make them bespoke.

Breaking down the amount they were looking for 2,000 Fivers, instead of asking for €10,000 was a cleaver approach.

From a donator’s perspective, that makes the whole campaign feel very achievable and something that you wanted to become involved in, which is what crowdfunding is all about.

Takeaways & Additional Information

This was a creative project and the rewards developed used the creator’s skills and were perfectly matched to their target audience, which were other creatives.

The campaign was noticeably clear in what they intended to do with the money and why they needed it.

It is a campaign that made the backers feel like they were part of something which is what most campaigns hope to achieve.