Future of work: Crowd-funded creative careers. A toolkit for creatives, educators, industry bodies and platforms

This research explores the experience of employment through crowdfunding, how the platform affects creatives’ relationships with their supporters, and the creative process. It was developed through 29 in-depth, qualitative interviews with creatives, mainly musicians but some visual artists too, who use Patreon. The sampling strategy was purposive; creatives who were active on Patreon and whose background was primarily either art or music, were contacted independent of gender and other demographics.

Researchers gathered information from creatives on themes including their background and employment history; initiation of their Patreon campaign; their experience of social media and crowd-funding platforms; and everyday activities including strategies to grow their patron base and relate to their patrons.

This toolkit looks at the phenomenon of crowdfunding and how it differs to the gig economy, crowdfunding trends and common platforms in the creative industries, case studies from creatives, key messages around job quality for crowd-funded creatives and implications for educationalists, policy, platforms and the creatives themselves. A designed toolkit and text-only version is available to download.