Success Stories / Helping a Musician Record Her Album

Chicago-based folk-pop rocker Jenny Gillespie recently finished recording material for an upcoming album with money she raised on The Point.

On her blog, Gillespie challenged her fan-base, friends and family to raise the money she needed for production costs and raised the cash to record with ease.

Why did it work? Jenny says that by folks being made aware of exactly how their money would be spent, in this case on recording, they were very willing to pledge money towards her project.

Pledgers also knew that there was nothing to lose by an “unsuccessful” campaign. On other social platforms, had Jenny raised a little more than half of the money, for example, she would be given the cash even though she would still be unable to record. With The Point, if Jenny were to have fallen short on her goal, money would not have been given in vain as it wouldn’t have been collected from those who pledged.

Fortunately for Gillespie, however, she received overwhelming support that went right into a successfully recorded album.

“If I were to do it differently,” she says, “I would have asked for more money because a dozen people or so wanted to contribute money after the campaign closed.”