Crowdfunding, Crowdsourcing and the Collaborative Economy: Old Wine/New Bottles, or Genuine Game Changer for Archaeology?

Summary

DigVentures was launched in 2012 as a rewards-based crowdfunding platform designed to enable participation in archaeology and citizen science projects. We were formed by a small team of archaeologists, driven to action by what we saw as the three most pressing needs affecting our sector: the necessity for heritage professionals, museums and cultural organizations to reduce dependence on grants and state funding; the development of digitally enabled alternative finance models that diversify sources of funding; and the rise of the experience economy and popularity of citizen science. Our first campaign at Flag Fen stands as world’s first-ever successfully crowdfunded archaeological excavation. Since then, we’ve repeated that initial success, crowdfunding a total of £150,000 for our projects, unlocking a further £700,000 in match funding from traditional grant-givers. Set within a broader economic trend that has seen the UK alternative finance market rise to £3.2b in 2015 (up 82% from £1.7b in 2014) and this new approach clearly offers promise. Drawing from specific examples from our project portfolio, in this short presentation I will explore the potential issues and practical steps that archaeologists can take to harness the crowd, and what differentiates this new model from anything that has gone before.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• The Future of Funding for Archaeology

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14582