Bowie Eye Update

In September 2016, I ran a successful Pozible crowdfunding campaign. With the help of more than 200 members of my community (some friends, some family, some kind strangers), I raised enough money to bring a large and rare printing press to Australia from London.

The campaign needed to be funded within the ambitiously short timeframe of two weeks and though it was technically ‘successful’ (meaning, it was funded) the process was harrowing and with the gift of hindsight, many of the issues that arose could have been avoided if had I planned it better or with more time. Others could never have been predicted.

Of course there were plenty of delays, I expected there would be. The removalists who were booked for the London pick-up took one look at my beautiful press and said “Nope!” When it did finally land in Australia, it got stuck in customs over Christmas and New Year. And at that time of year, it was even further delayed because the Melbourne removalist closed for holidays. It was your classic Mercury Retrograde BS, borderline comical. But on top of these kinds of ‘Murphy’s Law’ moments, I also hit two major snags that threw the campaign into absolute chaos.

Major snag 1: No Addresses or Postage Collected.

Pozible was an amazing site to crowdfund and I put this snag down to a newbie error for me, as a first-time crowdfunder. The campaign didn’t collect addresses or money for postage because I hadn’t ticked a box to indicate that rewards would be posted. Not having any postage addresses makes it very hard to send rewards! And with postage costs ranging from $8 - $25, not collecting postage also put me nearly $2,000 out of pocket.

Solution: Pick-ups encouraged!

In the weeks and months following the campaign, I updated pledgers via email to let them know that this had happened and to urge anyone in Melbourne to please call in at my studio to collect their rewards. I accepted the financial hit of paying for the postage, but tried to keep it to pledgers who lived in regional, interstate and international locations.

I kept my studio open every weekend for six months, and did social media shout-outs. Not everyone replied to my emails with an address, but a number of people called in a personally collected a print. To the best of my knowledge, anyone who replied to my email with an address was sent a print - including people who were located in Melbourne and I probably should have been more strict and insisted they collect.

Major snag 2: My studio space sold suddenly…

This was nothing short of a heartbreak and one that (if I’m being completely honest and vulnerable here) I still haven’t fully recovered from. The studio space that I had been in for almost 4 years was sold to a developer. I found out this news within weeks of buying the press. This put me in a very vulnerable position as I was bringing a very big, very heavy printing press to Australia and would potentially have nowhere to put it or to teach the classes that had made up a large part of the pledges. I would never have run the campaign, or bought another press at all, had I known that my days in the studio were numbered.

Solution: Prioritising classes

I prioritised pledgers who had pledged for classes as these would be impossible to honour without a studio and I made sure those pledgers booked their class before I had to move out of the studio. With only a handful of exceptions that I have been in contact with, to the best of my knowledge, all of these pledges were claimed, and I ran classes every weekend in the lead-up to the move out of my studio.

The Upshot and Outcome

Trying to fulfil rewards to hundreds of people without addresses, while also trying to teach classes and move 5 tonnes and 4 years of my art practice out of my studio was nothing short of a nightmare. After six months of emailing pledgers and keeping my studio open at weekends ‘just in case’, I needed to draw a line in the sand in order to move on and out of the studio. Refunds were availble through Pozible within a certain timeframe, but that timeframe has now passed and in spite of all the challenges, I took reasonable action to fulfil the pledges and to the best of my knowledge, those who gave me their address were sent their pledge at my own expense. Many pledgers never replied but if you believe you did get in touch with me and you never heard back, or you never received your print, please know that it would have simply been missed in the chaos.

So if you didn’t receive your pledge… what next?

Every reasonable effort was made to fulfil pledges. As a sign of goodwill and gratitude, I will make a donation in your name to the value of your pledge to your choice of charity or another crowdfunding campaign. To claim this, please email hello@saintgertrude.com.au and attach a receipt of your pledge and a link to to your charity or campaign of choice.

Thank you so much for your support.