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Regione Piemonte Crowdfunding for Culture: lessons learned beyond the fundraising formula

The "Civic Faraggiana Theater" was built in 1905 by the will of the Marquis Raphael who donated it to the city of Novara in 1911. After being closed for 17 years, a group of citizens decided that the theater would come back to life and created a dedicated Foundation to reach its goal. Accordingly the Foundation participated to "Witnesses of Art and Beauty", the 1st crowdfunding initiative launched by the Culture and Tourism Unit of Regione Piemonte in order to collect funds for the refurbishment of the foyer.
In the last decade the Regional Administration had to deal with decreasing budget allocated to Cultural Heritage protection and valorization; willing to adopt new and innovative financial solutions to enhance its support, Regione Piemonte launched a public call to select a crowdfunding platform to assist local cultural projects. Each project submitted (24 in total) should have a minimum estimated value of € 20.000,00 to be supported through a reward based crowdfunding (with the financial formula "All or nothing": if the budget is reached or exceeded, the project receives the amount collected; otherwise, the resources return to the donors).
"Faraggiana is also yours" proposal presented by the Foundation was approved by Regione Piemonte, since evaluated financially sustainable and in line with regional strategical cultural objectives.
At the end of the 70-days-campaign the sum requested was collected (and slightly exceeded) thanks to the support of 92 donors.

• Regione Piemonte: 1 management unit; staff for public tender procedure (crowdfunding platform); 3 members to evaluate submitted proposals
• financial support provided by regional in-house company (Finpiemonte) : 1 unit
• contract with crowdfunding platform concessionaire: € 25.000

"Faraggiana is also yours" proposal was successful thanks to:
• Regione Piemonte role that, as Public Authority, guaranteed the donors of the reliability and relevance of the selected projects;
• active dissemination of the campaign by the Faraggiana Foundation with:
- audience engagement through traditional media and Social Networks too;
- dedicated live events, videos and interviews;
- involvement of small private donors, but also bigger local economic actors

Only few participating cultural bodies were able to manage the crowdfunding campaign successfully. For future initiatives, Regione Piemonte could support applicants providing them with training on management and marketing tools and on fundraising rules & mechanisms.

Regione Piemonte tested crowdfunding to support regional cultural projects, making its own the potentialities of this formula which not only allows to rise financial resources, but it is also able to:
- engage a committed community;
- boost communication tools;
- strenghten marketing activities.
As well, some elements at the basis of crowdfunding are in common with Public Administrations values such as:
- community engagement
- funding transparency system
- ease of access.
Crowdfunding has been recognized as a strategic and sustainable option to respond to the change taking place on the resources front in many fields and as powerful tool able to create and consolidate a connection between an organization and its donors, who believe in the importance of a project and decide to support it.
In contexts where a public actor directly promotes the use of this instrument, the community is involved also into the realization of a public interest initiative.