Many bands use Kickstarter.com to raise money for their projects via crowd funding, and a number of Christian artists are among the platform's most successful to date.
As of Oct. 10, the all-time most successful, largest-yielding Kickstarter campaigns for music included seven Christian music projects in its Top 50, representing a wide variety of genres. Two of the bands—Carman and Five Iron Frenzy—occupied the site's Top 10.
The forthcoming project from Carman Licciardello, raised 269 percent of its initial $200,000 goal, netting the "Mission 3:16" singer/actor a total of $538,103, enough to be the second-highest take for crowd funding in Kickstarter music campaign history. Carman was exceeded only by musician Amanda Palmer, whose record, art book and tour raised a total of nearly $1.2 million.
Carman's second-place ranking has a nice cushion, being nearly double that of third place. Carman will use the funds to not only produce the album, but to also tour the country and produce a new music video. The project was a groundswell of support from the singer's fans, who recently learned of Carman's diagnosis of incurable cancer.
The seventh all-time Kickstarter music campaign came from ska/rock band Five Iron Frenzy, who raised $207,980—absolutely annihilating their original $30,000 goal. The results of that campaign will come to fruition in November, with the release of Engine of a Million Plots.
Christian music's presence in the Top 50 also includes Thousand Foot Krutch's completely fan-funded indie project, The End is Where We Begin, at No. 24; The Classic Crime's Phoenix album, which released last August, at No. 32; Anthem Lights' forthcoming project at No. 33; Audrey Assad's Fortunate Fall at No. 40; and the forthcoming album from John Mark McMillan rounding things out at No. 50.
To see what artists are turning to their fans for funding now, and to contribute and perhaps break future records, check out NewReleaseTuesday.com's LaunchPad page that collects active Christian crowd funding projects.
