On June 28, 2022, ONBD’s co-founder and CCO, Masako Shiba, was invited to participate in the Twitter Space discussion series “Ask an Expert”, to share her experience on “how to fundraise for your art project — Web2 vs. Web3.” This is the 6th episode of the series with the 2 hosts: Jessica Scenningson from DoinGud and Julia Flamingo from Artpool. The discussion was joined by Pauline Foessel, founder and director of Artpool though not shown in this transcription.
Background on the series:
“Ask an Expert” is an ongoing collaborative panel series co-organized by Doingud and Artpool, which aims to stimulate and inspire dialogue between artists, curators, crypto, and NFT enthusiasts around blockchain and the art world. As part of a strong community of artists, creators, curators, and collectors, ONBD is committed to producing meaningful projects and creating positive social impact. Fundraising for creative production is something we have always cared about and are dedicated to doing.
In this conversation, the speakers shared her experiences of the challenges within web2 fundraising and her hopes for how web3 can resolve those issues, and the value that the role of a fundraiser brings to art initiatives.
Below, we share an excerpt of Masako’s insights during the talk.
Jessica: Hello everyone and welcome to “Ask an Art Expert”, a collaborative panel series between DoinGud and Artpool aimed to stimulate and inspire dialogue between artists, curators, crypto and NFT-enthusiasts around blockchain and the art world. My name is Jessica, a digital art curator, educator, and Creative Coordinator at DoinGud, and with me again today is my co-host Julia from Artpool.
Julia: Thank you Jessica. It is always a pleasure to continue the conversations on Ask an Expert where we combine curators from our community with artists from yours to share their insights on important topics related to the art world. For those who don’t know us, Artpool is the first curator-driven NFT platform powered by a global network of vetted curators, art organizations and artists who come to connect and fundraise. With a community of over 900+ professional curators behind us, we are the go-to platform for art professionals to connect, and for NFT collectors to find the finest NFT artworks on Web3.
In today’s episode titled Fundraising for Creative Production: How to fundraise for your art project — Web2 vs. Web3. We will be speaking with Pauline Foessel, founder and director of Artpool, and Masako Shiba, co-founder of ONBD an NFT curatorial brand & residency. Thank you so much for being here!
Julia: Firstly, could you briefly introduce yourself so that listeners in this space get to know your path?
MS: Thank you Jessica and Julia for having me here today! My name is Masako Shiba, co-founder of NFT curation and residency company ONBD. As with Pauline, I come from the traditional art world, being nearly 2 decades in the NY art scene. The last decade I have worked in management roles at Rockefeller institutions that support Asian art through museums and cultural exchange. My passion is to support the development of artists and their practices, and this led me to start my own initiatives last year where I started 4 art entities including ONBD. I have one small nonprofit in Brooklyn that is an artist residency which works predominantly with Japanese artists, two more industry specific art startups, and ONBD which I co-founded with two amazing partners — one is Dan Chen, partner at one of the most important and respected contemporary Chinese galleries in the world, and our CEO Eva Ren who is a wonderful fresh minded curator in her twenties who has VC and tech/web3 background. She is our strongest bridge between the crypto world and has an amazing reach and base amongst the Chinese speaking next generation communities. We started this organization because we wanted to see this technology be used in a meaningful way to enable artists to do things they were not able to do before, and that includes fundraising or building support communities for their projects through web3. I am excited to learn more about how Artpool and DoinGud enables that today.
Julia: What are some of the biggest hurdles for artists and creative organizations face when it comes to fundraising? Why are NFTs a useful tool and Web3 a good space and NFTs a good tool to fundraise? Let’s explain it to those who are listening to us. How and why do these new technologies make it easier to fundraise? What is your experience with fundraising in the physical art world and what are some of the challenges you have faced?
MS: It’s funny because my experience in non-profit was never “non-profit,” as they are always in need of funding. Purchasing works for the permanent collection, unrestricted funding for museum operations, arts education, archivists, security and maintenance of collections, hiring curators, exhibition specific requirements, there is a never ending list of items that need fundraising for. There are many ways to do this, we create capital campaigns, structure gifts from board of trustees and patrons, charity galas — that’s a big one- annually at the level we operated, millions had to be raised, and yet, its constantly a challenge to do so with the limited format and prospect list that we go back to every time.
What I am hoping web3 can do is to be able to create a new dynamic to this structure — introducing new people and new ways to support projects. It’s also exciting to have people be able to not only finance the final outcome, but have supporters have a sense of involvement from the process of the creation of works, through direct interaction with the artists via discord, Twitter etc. — there’s no better educator than the artist making the work itself- and hopefully that understanding and immediate interaction can give everyone a stronger sense of commitment to the project they are supporting. I’m also looking to build NFT membership structures for my nonprofit, where NFTs with utilities can reflect the supporting interest of the members. Memberships have been important but the incentives that can be provided was somewhat limited in their offerings. I am hopeful that web3 can resolve that issue.
Julia: Can you tell us a success story of fundraising via NFTs (doesn’t have to be NFT)? What made it work? Why did they achieve success?
MS: In web3, your uniqueness is your value, and purchasing an NFT can be seen more as supporting the idea of the creator in a direct way. One of our artists whom we work with took advantage of that element and started a social impact project called Metapeople. Shinji Murakami, the artist behind the project started as a professional Emoji creator for a Japanese cellphone company before becoming a graffiti artist with an interest in new media & video games. He would spread positive imagery of 8bit symbolisms throughout town. Now with NFT platforms like DoinGud that enable his work to directly support the cause he cares for most, he started a charitable NFT series called MetaPeople. The first iteration, Asian edition, supports AAPI rights and Stop Asian Hate Crime movements. MetaPeople will continue to evolve in many different iterations to support BLM and LGBTQ organizations as well, and the artist is happy that this new technology enables his charitable impact of his work proved on the blockchain.
To fundraise is also to do marketing. When I say marketing, I mean not only to promote sales, but to tell the story of the artist or project in a comprehensive way. For instance, for NFT NYC, ONBD hosted a project that was a collaboration between two new media artists. One of the artists, Kevin Heisner aka Shlumper created a gummy candy NFT that was a consumable, 3D version of the NFTs he installed on monitors with wall murals incorporating AR. We had a big audience who were not all crypto native, but were able to experience blockchain innovation better than how I can ever explain in words. The project was aimed to entice everyone to overcome the hurdles they think exist between physical and metaphysical, and it introduced many traditional art people to the NFT world.
Julia: In the communities and contexts you live and work — the United States and Japan — do you believe that there has been a good acceptance from your contemporaries and those around you that NFTs can be a tool for fundraising? Or do the majority of them still go for traditional ways of fundraising?
MS: The traditional art world is traditional in all senses of the word and that also applies to how they fundraise. Before we go into that, I should mention that museums in US and Japan have a very different need when it comes to fundraising. US institutions rely predominantly on private funding, and there are tax benefits in doing so. The situation in Japan is more similar to European institutions where the support for museums usually comes from government funding, meaning they have less of a need to fundraise on their own. That being said, they all do have to go through budgeting and for any country, non-profit budgeting and accounting is strict and I believe everyone is trying to figure out how to apply cryptocurrency to their books. Until they have clarification and feel they understand the system better, I believe it will take some time for any institution to actively look into web3 fundraising. That being said, my nonprofit is so small and any income is an added bonus, and we get to experiment in a lot of things larger institutions are not able to! We will gladly be the test model by incorporating NFT fundraising for our organization.
Julia: There are many different purposes of fundraising campaigns: some raise funds for specific future projects, and others are directed to finance good purposes, like charity, climate change, NGOs, unprivileged communities, or even the war in Ukraine. What makes people support fundraising projects? And why do they choose to support one specific project instead of another?
MS: Supporters will support what interests them. Mission statements and causes they align their interests with are crucial.
Jessica: Artist Marina Abramovic did her first NFTs during Art Basel on Tezos Blockchain called ‘The Hero’. Amongst the many interesting concepts in her project is the fact that she sees some people in the Web3 as Heros because some projects raise huge amounts of money for good purposes.
She said “I’ve been reading about Web3 and about what the new generation is doing within that space. It’s undoubtedly the future. I can barely type an email and they’re raising millions to help people and save the rainforest. They are heroes.”
She also mentioned Nadya Tolokonnikova who raised $6.7 Million dollars for Ukraine in March. She says Web3 is the future. Her NFT collection was actually awarded a series of grants to people working within the Tezos ecosystem who demonstrate a desire to make the world a better place. I would like to hear your opinion about this. Do you also believe that some people working with fundraising via NFTs are heroes? Do you believe that you both are heroes because you are doing it :)?
MS: It’s wonderful that major artists like Marina are getting into NFTs. Most art ppl who come into NFTs are from commercial art, and hence Pauline and I who come from nonprofit are rare, but at the same time the relevance of my being in crypto is heard within the traditional art community — I have many colleagues in the field who would come to me for advice because of the legitimacy they see in me being involved with it. It’s definitely encouraging to see major artists like Marina coming into the space as it would be a great sign of confidence for those who are skeptical about incorporating web3 in their practice.
To touch upon the role of a fundraiser, I consider us as a facilitator that enables projects of artists that create meaningful content, with the best quality. I believe doing so contributes to bettering the ecological landscape of web3. Web3 is the future, and there could be a lot of great things that can be done through this technology. We as early adopters have a responsibility to lead by examples of best practice so the industry can evolve to its full potential. What makes a lot of web3 communities great is that they acknowledge how everyone has a different skill set, perspective, background and value in this new system. The world is a better place by celebrating diversity, embracing the uniqueness of everyone. Artists visualize that and we are happy to work closely with those who excel at it.
Julia: Finally, if people who are here listening to us are interested in fundraising in Web3 what can they do? What are the steps? Who do they have to look for?
MS: I would suggest they should look to support people who are doing meaningful initiatives, and care about the quality of the projects — those are worth supporting and will have longevity. We’re not in it for the short term, we’re in it for the long run and those would be the only ones with lasting value in my opinion.
Jessica: Are you excited for ETH Barcelona, which opens in 1 week from now?
MS: Yes! We are also excited to be a part of DoinGud’s IRL presentation at ETH Barcelona with an exhibition “Life on Land” with artists showing their NFTs on monitor screens and some even using AR! I hope everyone can either go see in person or visit online.
Again I would like to thank Pauline, and Jessica and Julia, DoinGud and Artpool for hosting this series. It’s great to have meaningful conversations that allow us to articulate our ideas and stance towards web3, and we as ONBD are encouraged to have friends like you that are fighting the good fight to better the ecosystem.
Jessica: This was a great talk, thank you so much for being there, everyone! Stay tuned for more Twitter Spaces of Ask an Art Expert, held in partnership between DoinGud and Artpool. We will see you in two weeks! Thank you
