Building the Hoover Dam Collective
January
11,
2012
The Hoover Dam Collective produces performances which feature music, dance, film, theater, and visual art. The RocketHub team loves seeing the intricate and media-rich Hoover Dam offerings - and we've raved about their talent in the past. So it's super cool to host the Hoover Dam Collective crowdfunding project.
The Hoover Dam Collective is a group of young artists based in Brooklyn, NY who are particularly interested in making work that crosses the boundaries of traditional art disciplines. The Collective was founded in 2009 by a group of dynamic individuals from the world renowned art conservatories at the State University of New York at Purchase College.
The HDC produces performances in and around New York City which feature collaboration between music, dance, film, theater, and visual art. We intend for our shows to create an accessible and intimate atmosphere in order to expose our art to new audiences and break down the barriers between spectator and performer. We hope to cultivate local talent and give artists the chance to learn through collaboration, while also providing exposure opportunities.
What has your experience been as a crowdfunding pioneer in the world of indie art in NYC - how are your supporters responding?
The Hoover Dam Collective has existed for about a year and a half, and we have yet to conduct a formal fundraiser. The fact that we have survived this long without a source of funding is testament to what a supportive and generous community we have created. A year and a half into it's existence, the HDC has developed into something bigger than any of us could have ever imagined. Especially in the last 6 months, we have really begun to see the potential of the Collective, and we feel that, in order to see our greater visions for the HDC realized, we need to raise some funds. It is our hope that the Collective can become a safe place for artists to share their work, be part of a community, and gain exposure to work in other disciplines.
One of the greatest things about the Hoover Dam Collective is our ability to make art flourish in untraditional environments. For example, our third show ever (and to this day, one of our favorites!) took place in an abandoned room behind a bodega in Bushwick. We feel that the HDC is characterized by a sort of scrappy, "make-it-work" mentality, and that this has contributed vastly to our success thus far. We want to take high-quality art down off of a platform and make it more comfortable and accessible. However, we have realized that, in order to make our shows available to a broader audience, we need to investigate the possibilities of new venues. We hope that this fundraiser will give us the ability to afford to produce shows in bigger, more centrally-located spaces, so as to be able to share what we do with more people.
It is also incredibly important to us to be able to pay the talented people who perform with and lend their services to us. We hope that this fundraiser will help us compensate those who have tirelessly and consistently shared their work with us without any expectation of payment. We also hope to be able to hire artists who are further along in their careers to perform alongside those who are just starting out in order to broaden perspectives and continue conversation.
Additionally, we just want to get the word out about the Hoover Dam Collective. We all believe so strongly in what we are doing, and want to involve as many people as possible. We feel that the motivation behind this campaign is a strong sense of generosity- we believe in art as an incredibly powerful tool for creating community, and we want to share this community.
How can someone replicate your organization and success? What have you learned?
As a group of people who have little to no experience fundraising, this campaign has been an interesting journey thus far. We have really cultivated our ability to reach out and to communicate why this project is so important. It was interesting to sit down as a group and talk about the value of the Collective, a conversation that later turned into much of the interview footage used in our video. I think that anyone who has been to one of our shows has a pretty solid idea of WHY the HDC is so valuable and unique, and all of the members have an innate sense of the importance of what we are doing. However, many of the people to whom we are reaching out have never been to a show, and perhaps don't even really understand what it is that we do. The trick was to figure out the best way to communicate this to potential donors.
Conducting a fundraising campaign really forced us to examine ourselves and clarify what our goals are, and how we can market that to the public in a way that makes sense. It also made us take a deep look at the expanse of our community, and how far our network can possibly reach. The vast majority of the people who come out to our shows are under the age of 30. However, most of these young folks aren't financially stable and settled enough to donate a significant amount of money. The campaign is helping us to reach out to a different generation of audience members and fans, which is really valuable: it has been one of our primary goals in the last six months to expand and include audiences of other generations.
Personally, I was surprised by how many people I barely knew immediately jumped at the chance to participate in the fundraiser, while it took people who were closer to me (like my parents!) a longer time to warm up to the idea. I think the disparity lives in the personal experience potential donors may or may not have had with the Collective. Almost all of our initial donations were from people who had attended HDC shows and had discovered something relevant or meaningful.
Something else that was difficult (and still is!) was to communicate to donors that we don't just want them to give us money, we want them to be a part of what we have created. A crowdfunding campaign is so ideally suited to what the Hoover Dam Collective is trying to accomplish, because the point is to include as many people as possible, which is really what we aim to do with the shows we produce. Our advice would be to think of the campaign not just as a fundraiser, but also as a means of sharing your project with the public, and increasing awareness. In the end, perhaps meeting your goal isn't necessarily the most valuable thing. For us, the Rockethub campaign has served, most importantly, as an opportunity to self reflect and rediscover why we do what we do.
Thank you for being a part of the RocketHub community and for the sweet project. Join The Collective here and support their Fractured Atlas sponsored project.
-Vlad
