Hi, Steve (are you the Spring Sing Thing Steve?)-

I get cranky about it, too - and sometimes people have jumped on me for being hard-hearted. Same goes for other kinds of crowd-funding, like using the Web to solicit funds for somebody who's had a tragedy. On the Internet, it's hard to tell what's authentic and what's not.

Back in 2013, somebody started a thread here (click) at Mudcat, asking for funds to help Andy M. Stewart, who had medical problems that eventually led to his death. I questioned the authenticity of the appeal, and some people weren't very happy with me for a time. I was eventually convinced the appeal was authentic, but it's really hard to tell.

There are some Mudcatters who have used crowd-funding to put together a CD, and most of them have done a very good job of it. Deb Cowan is one of those people who does everything right, anyhow; so I expected her to do a good job of crowdfunding a CD. She didn't disappoint me. She took supporters along with her on the journey, telling them of her experiences and she went along the process of producing the CD - and sending us MP3s along the way.

I know you and I disagree about songbooks, but I've been a user of Rise Up Singing since it came out in 1988 - although I try to follow the editors' intentions and I use my songbook politely. Well, the editors, Peter Blood and Annie Patterson, did a couple of fundraising campaigns to get support for producing the Rise Again sequel one Sing Out! couldn't come through with a book. I contributed, and then joined their staff as a volunteer. It turned into a fulltime, unpaid job that lasted a year. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and I guess Peter and Annie liked my work because they named me Associate Editor.

So, I guess I'd say I have mixed feelings about crowdfunding, but it does seem to have value.

-Joe-

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I moved this to the music section, because it has a lot of significance to us folk people these days.