Moye White partner Jackie Benson was quoted in an article in U.S. News & World Report May 6th: “Crowdfunding, a new frontier for investors.”
In 2012, director Steve Taylor embarked on a Kickstarter project just short of impossible: His goal was to raise $125,000 in 30 days after financial backers pulled funding for his movie “Blue Like Jazz,” an adaptation of Donald Miller’s best-selling memoir.
With the help of two fans, Taylor’s campaign blitz succeeded big – as in history-making big. It netted $346,000, a record fundraise for any film project on a crowdfunding platform. And as a promised perk, Taylor made thank-you phone calls to every person who pledged. All 3,500 of them.
Now, with the advent of investor-based crowdfunding, there’s a better way to thank those who pony up dough: by offering them a piece of the financial action. Would Taylor consider it for a future project? “I’d do it in a heartbeat if it could retain the elegance and integrity of Kickstarter,” he says. “But it needs an ingredient the movie business doesn’t understand: transparent accounting.”
