Fundraising

Art Stream Raises $15,000 to Promote the Arts

Who are you?

ArtStream, Inc. is non-profit based in Greater Washington DC. We bring the arts to people who are traditionally underserved. We believe that the transformative power of the arts should be available to everyone, regardless of disability or life-circumstances.

What is your campaign? What are you fundraising for?

Our campaign is “9 Reasons to Give $9 to ArtStream” This is our summer campaign to help with our general operating budget. We’ve just entered our 9th year as a company and our goal is bring more new donors in than ever before. We’re only asking for $9, so everyone can afford to be generous.

Why did you choose CauseVox?

We were really attracted to CauseVox’s personal fundraising pages. This way our staff, board, teachers, and students can all tell their own story and reach out to their own donors. We’ve tried fundraiser pages on other platforms before and they were so clunky that no one wanted to campaign. But this year, we’ve had more fundraisers than ever before, and I think it’s because the platform is so easy to use.

What lessons have you learned from running this campaign?

Our donors care about a personal connection. People tend to filter out emails and posts from organizations, but when a friend posts about something that they’re passionate about, they will read and click-through.

We really had fun with our campaign this year. We posted animated GIFs. We made puns. We took goofy photos. It’s much easier to spread the word when your campaign is fun and share-able. I was surprised how many of our donors choose to pay for our online fees with the “tipping” function.

What are your hopes that the funding will do?

ArtStream is in a growing year. We are hoping to hire at least two new people in our office in the next six months. We hope that a successful fundraiser over the summer will mean we can invest in quality employees and good equipment so that our programs are well supported.