Kickstarter raised millions for movie projects. Now it wants to be part of indie film fandom with a new million dollar culture fund.

Kickstarter’s CMO Courtney Brown-Warren and head of film Taylor Shaw weigh in.

Struggling indie film producers looking to finance their projects now have a new place to turn. The Brooklyn-based crowd funding platform Kickstarter is launching a new culture fund aimed at helping film makers realize their dreams.

It’s part of a broad marketing effort to put Kickstarter at the front of fund raising conversations while also helping producers rediscover the platform as a way to tap fandoms for financing. The new million dollar culture fund which is also available to talent in fashion, music and art, grew out of a “Power of Belief,” ad campaign now visible on New York taxi tops and on billboards around Times Square. Kickstarter broke records in 2024 when fans helped raise almost $1.4 million to get horror movie, “Shelby Oaks,” from YouTuber Chris Stuckmann into production. It also helped “The Apprentice” find an audience.

Courtney Brown-Warren, the company’s chief marketing officer told The Media Mix, “We were thinking how can we fund these same type of creators who are coming to us, who may need finishing funds, who may need some way to kind of get over that hump…We started thinking where are the all the institutional struggles? You know they’re not just film, but they’re in art, in music. They’re people who have maybe non-traditional ways of putting their art into the world, maybe your more commercial businesses would not want to invest in, but we said we want to invest in them.”

More partners with additional financial muscle are expected to be confirmed soon. Kickstarter previously joined forces with Fox’s Tubi to support creative projects in film and get them distribution. The fund’s first partner is Creative Scotland, which supports Scottish-based creators. Can prospective Kickstarter campaigners use AI? Here’s what the company told me: “Projects will be subject to our AI policy which allows the use of AI, but enforces strict transparency rules for creators.” The successful entrants to the global initiative must have a campaign with Kickstarter and will be judged by a panel of experts.

While interest in the creator economy is huge and even hedge funds were at Cannes Lions looking to invest their money, those funds typically coalesce around already successful players. In June, CAA and TPG joined forces to create a $250 million fund to back YouTubers. Indeed, creator economy M&A had a record first half according to The Ankler’s Natalie Jarvey. Still, the flight of ad dollars to streamers and social media has meant that traditional film maker funding sources from the likes of public broadcasters around the world have dried up. The US Corporation for Public Broadcasting which had funded film makers like Ken Burns dissolved in January after its $1.1 billion budget was axed last year. In June, the BBC said it was cutting GBP 500 million ($675 million.)

The company’s chief executive Everette Taylor told USA Today yesterday about the financial difficulties that artists run into. “A lot of them, even the people that you see, saying, ‘oh…I’m in Vogue’ or ‘I did this thing,’ or ‘I just like launched a movie…They don’t show you that they went into debt launching that movie.”

Daniel Bekerman and Amy Baer, the makers of “The Apprentice,” movie - about Donald Trump’s early life - turned to Kickstarter after they struggled to find a distributor. Legal threats from President Trump created a host of issues for the filmmakers, leading them to launch a, “Release The Apprentice,” campaign that raised $100,000 in a single day. Among the current Kickstarter campaigns is a series titled, “When Your House is Haunted but Your Rent is Cheap.” which has already raised in excess of $100,000 for production.

Backers who sign up to support projects on the crowdfunding platform don’t receive equity in the projects - the funds are not loans but fans can score such things as free movie tickets or credits on the final reel. Kickstarter campaigns give talent a limited time to raise their target funds, if they fail backers aren’t asked to commit their cash. For those interested in getting started with a campaign or joining as a backer, Reddit has a ton of threads on how to execute.

Kickstarter has been connecting with talent at film festivals across the globe. I caught up with the head of film, Taylor Shaw-Omachonu, about her role. Here’s a condensed version of our chat at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

Q: How do you start a Kickstarter campaign?

A: It requires a lot of preparation, and if you’re prepared before you launch, then it’s smooth sailing. You start with a mailing list, so you think of all of the people in your community that would support you; all of the people that care about the kind of work that you make that would support it, and then from there you come up with a campaign page. You launch the campaign. You let it run for about 30 days, and you’re just making sure that anyone and everyone knows that they can be a part of. You invite them into your movie making process.

Q: What brought you to the Cannes Film Festival?

A: What we’ve been noticing at Kickstarter is that both funding and distributing have been challenges for filmmakers and I’m seeing an openness to exploring what most would consider alternative ways of funding. At this moment, folks are really hyper aware that they have to consider what it would look like to invite their audience into the process to participate in their filmmaking journey.

Q: What are the conversations you are having?

A: I’ve reached out to a lot of production companies, some distributors and studios that have built-in audiences, fan bases or subject matter that would be very interesting to different communities, and so with that, the goal has primarily been sharing with them how they can leverage the platform for marketing and distribution support. There’s a couple of Sundance films that are here that I’m talking with. They’re saying, ‘we really want to engage the community as part of the film.’ There’s other folks who have their distributors, they have filmmakers that they believe in but they’re like, ‘some movies I make money on, and some I don’t. So how can we incorporate Kickstarter into the process to support the overall cost of the production of a film for a filmmaker we believe in.” Those are a lot of the conversations.

Q: “The Apprentice” campaign raised about $400,000. What are some of the biggest film campaigns to run on Kickstarter?

A: We’ve seen animation and genre projects raise millions of dollars on the platform. There’s a [2024] film called “Shelby Oaks” that raised about $1.3 million on Kickstarter and that was what they needed for the budget. They raised it, and it got distributed by Neon in theaters and I think they did over $8 million [in box office.]

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