Where’s the Money?

Where’s the Money?

by joannefilm | Aug 11, 2023

Where’s the Money?

I have an unusual way of looking at filmmaking.  I often listen to a filmmaker telling me about their films, their vision and their dreams of making more and more films, and I find myself simply asking one simple question: How much money do you need to raise?

The answer to this question is very telling; some filmmakers answer with a HUGE number! I refer to this as crazy.  Some filmmakers answer with a perfectly sensible number, but they have no experience of fundraising and so – sensible or not – they don’t have the faintest idea how to get that $100,000, $300,000, $1,000,000.  And then, some filmmakers have a lot of fundraising experience, but are still experiencing stress about money, and don’t have enough money to create the work they really want to make.

Often filmmakers tell me a number. And it’s a crazy number.  But the filmmaker doesn’t know it’s a crazy number. S/he thinks it’s perfectly reasonable.  But when you are trying to raise a crazy number, nothing you ever do is going to work.  Because, even if you don’t know it’s crazy, everyone you are talking to does.

How is it that potential investors, especially those who know absolutely nothing about the filmmaking industry, know that this number is crazy?

It’s because those potential investors are not necessarily trained in all things filmmaking: they don’t know about scripts, and storytelling, and good directing. What they do know is good business?  They have pretty basic questions: How much is this film worth? What is your plan to sell it?  How am I going to get my money back? How am I going to make a profit?  When am I going to get my money back?

Most filmmakers cannot begin to answer those simple questions.

Most filmmakers have never even considered those simple questions.

Without being able to provide the answers to these questions, filmmakers cannot possibly raise funds for their movies.

So let’s look at the filmmakers with the sensible numbers.  Let’s say $100,000 or $200,000 which are pretty modest in terms of filmmaking.  If we look at this scenario from a traditional fundraising standpoint, you need to build on what you have raised before.  So if you have raised $15,000, it’s still going to be a considerable challenge to raise $100,000 or $200,000, simply because that is such a big step up. Your next step is not a $2M film.  If you have raised a $100,000, your next step is perhaps $200,000-$700,000 rather than $2M.  And potential investors are also going to be skeptical if you are trying to raise $2M and you have no experience, and – even more importantly – no money in the bank.

But there is an exception to this rule. If your first feature has made a ton of money, you may be able to skip a step.  If you have made a feature film for – say – $120,000 – and you sell it for $400,000 – $900,000, your second film is going to be interesting….

And finally, if you are a seasoned filmmaker, with several features under your belt. If you already have a production team and a slate of projects, what you will already know is that you need to be able to raise more money.  What a really common scenario here is that the production company has not invested in fundraising.  This is a problem not solely suffered by film organizations, for profit and non profit.  It’s based on a scarcity mentality and misguided business practices. It’s basically the idea that if we just scramble along, we’ll manage and get through one project at a time, perhaps earn money making commercials to pay the bills, and never put a stake in the ground to a) invest in fundraising and b) learn fundraising.

Years ago, when I took a job at Youth Radio, I looked at their 990s and paperwork the day after I took the job. (Lesson learned: Read the 990 before accepting the job!)  It was easy to see that the line item that included expenses for fundraising was zero.  I was horrified.  But there is nothing strange about this.  Even successful organizations such as this, with over $2 Million a year budgets think they can just manage without investing in growing their fundraising capacity.  Within 5 months, I had raised $2 Million!  (And then they let me go.LOL! You’ll get the in depth version of this story in my upcoming book….)

The organization was raising almost 100% of its income from foundations.  Which is great. They are much revered by foundations. But they are leaving all kinds of money on the table!  I was able to enroll them into running a Major Donor Campaign.  But there are at least 5 other types of fundraising we could have been raising.  This is SO typical for organizations.  The need to hire professional fundraising consultants or staff to raise the level of the fundraising is absolutely essential.

joannefilm is Joanne Butcher, a film business coach with a roster of clients that have over 100 feature films in various stages of development and over 15 clients with feature films in distribution, as well as one client with a series on PBS. She has experience consulting on over 40 successful crowdfunding campaigns. She uses her decades of experience as a fundraiser in multiple sectors through her business, Filmmaker Success, where she runs The Film Box Office S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Formula™ and The Virtual Fundraising Team to help filmmakers and non-profits change their way of thinking, raise money, and achieve their goals.