At a glance:

• Project: The Last Babushka Doll
• Platform: Pozible
• $ raised: $6,371
• Donors: 68

The team

Award-winning published writer Georgina Luck and renowned filmmaker and script assessor Angelo Salamanca have collaborated for ten years. In 2016 they began work on an ambitious new project: their first short film. Set in the Blue Mountains, The Last Babushka Doll is a drama about a paramedic’s most confronting case.

The approach

Luck and Salamanca armed themselves with knowledge by attending Pozible crowdfunding workshops to learn more about the platform and how best to utilise it.

They built momentum by starting with a soft launch, revealing the campaign to a smaller group of family and friends before it was released to their wider audiences.

This helped create a healthy base for the campaign before it was presented to donors more unfamiliar with the team’s work.

Social media also played an important role: the team made sure they thanked supporters and promoted the campaign while also sharing news and amusing anecdotes about the project.

They also purchased a small amount of Facebook advertising to raise the campaign profile. The film’s partners promoted it to their networks through newsletters, social media, website articles and direct emails.

This broad communications strategy worked very well: several people who were in no way connected to the production team or their supporters donated to the campaign.

The team also drew on their existing industry connections, holding fundraising events that were extremely successful.

In addition to securing funds and donors, these events helped the team share their vision with numerous high-profile and highly-experienced actors and film practitioners, as well as potential sponsors.

The campaign’s initial target of $5,000 was well and truly toppled, with the final figure coming in at $6,371: a 27% increase on expectations.

The outcome

There were many unforeseen benefits from the campaign that followed. Efforts to reach out to the Blue Mountains community resulted in immense goodwill.

A number of Blue Mountains businesses came on board as financial and/or in-kind sponsors for the project. The campaign also ended up functioning as a recruitment drive for the project; which has greatly raised the calibre of the film.

‘’The Last Babushka Doll’ Film Pozible campaign was an overwhelming success and exceeded our expectations in terms of the amount raised, the networks we developed and the goodwill that the campaign generated in the local community.” – The Last Babushka Doll team

Coaching and mentoring

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