SpokesBUZZ Successfully Crowdfunds Innovative Five City BandSwap

SpokesBUZZ Fort Collins is a nonprofit focused on raising "global awareness of Fort Collins [Colorado] sound and culture by bringing worldwide attention to local bands." I'm not sure how their international work is going but they are currently making a splash with their upcoming BandSwap tour that takes five Fort Collins' bands to five U.S. cities for shows with local bands. These bands in turn visit Fort Collins for a weekend of shows.

To make that happen, SpokesBUZZ ran a successful crowdfunding campaign with matching donations from their city.

SpokesBUZZ BandSwap Community Funded Campaign Video

SpokesBUZZ announced their fundraising campaign in July and went on to be successfully funded by early August. They raised a bit over $5000 and presumably that was matched as announced by the City of Fort Collins.

As a nonprofit, they chose to go with the Community Funded crowdfunding platform for their campaign:

"During the last weekend of September, six Fort Collins bands will travel to different host cities. The bands will play with already known bands from those cities, playing full opening sets for the host cities bands. The following weekend, the SpokesBUZZ bands will return to Fort Collins, accompanied by the partnering bands from the host cities, for a full weekend extravaganza of music."

It's a creative idea that can raise the profiles of all bands involved as well as that of Fort Collins and SpokesBUZZ. Here are their objectives:

1. Reach out to established music cities which we would like to emulate and cross pollination and create radical collaboration with these cities.
2. Create a national PR and marketing campaign for the City of Fort Collins, our partnering cities and our sponsors.
3. Establish partnerships and ongoing reciprocal relationships with venues, media, bands and fans in like-minded cities across the nation.
4. Develop credibility for SpokesBUZZ and the City of Fort Collins as a go-to source for up-and-coming music and as a fast growing arts and culture scene.

If the campaign page is accurate for claimed rewards, much of the $5000 came as donations. Though this phenomenon also occurs to some degree with more typical crowdfunding campaigns, the combination of a nonprofit community organization fundraising for an easy-to-support local cause on a community funding site seems likely to explain why the majority of funds raised via this campaign were donations.

It also helps that the concept is clear and engaging, the video is entertaining and the larger objectives are spelled out.

The tour kicks off September 27th and take place in the following cities:

• Milwaukee, WI
• Boise, ID
• Portland, OR
• Lafayette, LA
• Memphis, TN

Shows in Fort Collins, CO take place October 4 through 7.

Congratulations to SpokesBuzz and to all the bands involved for a great idea and a successful campaign.

Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch) blogs about music crowdfunding at Crowdfunding For Musicians (@CrowdfundingM). To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.