Islay Festival Documentary - Crowd Funding

Addendum : One can donate as much as they feel like. From $10 to $1000 and anything in between.

I could put together a virtual 'screening' of the documentary once complete. The investors would be the only ones to see it until we launch to the public. Since this is not a commercial venture there would be no profits made on investment - just the opportunity to be part of a subject close to all of our hearts.

While the Festival is quite a number of months away I still need to be able to plan and coordinate rather quickly.

For those who've never been this could be a window to that world. For those who plan to go will know what to expect. And for those who've been will be a trip down memory lane.

What do you think?

When would you need to raise the 8k by? Do you think you could get 400 people who would on average donate $20?

@broadwayblue Let's say I'd have to raise this no later than Feb 16 . And I don't mind if it's 800 guys who put $10 in.

I think a raffle would be a good idea. Charge a baseline fee for a drawing to stay in Islay with a few host families there and maybe have some nice dinners with some shakers and movers on the island.

You needn't cover the cost of air fare or transportation to Islay and you needn't cover the cost of more than, say, two or three days of fun, as well as asking the winner to help you shoot your documentary the rest of the time.

That, in and of itself, would be fun for a good many people, if you have some contacts and make a well done documentary and maybe shoot a token amount of footage of the person or the couple that wins as they help you to make the documentary itself as a grip, a gopher, whatever.

In fact, you could even incorporate the raffle on Connosr into the documentary itself. That would have the added benefit of providing some advertising for Connor.

For many folks here on Connor, the thrill would have to do with impressive connections and staying with a host family or two that is located, more or less, at the epicenter of the magic that is Islay whisky.

I recommend you ask some of your contacts on Islay to help facilitate a raffle with one person or a couple perhaps winning.

By that, I don't mean financially. Rather, I mean in offering a meal here or there, a private scotch tasting with some greats at a distillery or two, and yes, with you (yourself included, yes, you are on your way to becoming a great yourself) as well as some other fun insider stuff on Islay.

By incorporating the raffle into your documentary it would give an inn here, a B&B there, a restaurant here, or a distillery here or there with some worthwhile publicity and a well made documentary to enjoy for years to come. Yes, the locals on Islay would probably watch it the most if you did it right! Get some fun interaction between famous locals, imbue it with a human interest, and you are on your way MaltActivist to going even father than a fluff piece or a stuffy piece that's obsessed merely with the whisky rather than the spirit of the people that goes into making it so magical of a drink.

If you charged $50 per entry, then you would have your money in no time and would not run the risk of falling short of your financial target and then needing to make up the difference. In any case, if you did commit to the raffle, you would probably need to follow through on it no matter how many people paid their entry fee.

Still, it wouldn't be a lot for you to pay considering that the cost of the raffle itself would be small since it would not be all the dependent upon paying out money for an expensive prize but rather offering a chance to brush elbows with some whisky greats on Islay.

I think with a clever raffle you could raise 15K especially if you used physical tickets in the raffle to ddraw out of a receptical of some sort.

At $50 per ticket, if there was no restriction on the amount of tickets one person might buy to tip the drawing in his or her favor, you could raise a big ole tub fulla dough. In fact, that could cause some folks to buy quite a few tickets, especially if they knew that others were doing the same.

@Cunundrum Thank you so much for such an in-depth suggestion. Makes complete sense to do what you're doing. I think that's a great idea. I can conduct the draw live (via live stream for complete transparency).

I don't know right now what I could promise - there will be a lot of coordination and correspondence before I can finalize anything. But I'm positive there would be a bunch of amazing things that the winner could experience as part of this project.

Let's see what the rest of the community says!

@MaltActivist

Just be sure to keep in mind that you're doing a multinational and (if on this site) public endeavour. if it's crowdfunding it's as simple as asking for cash. if it's a raffle it may be considered a lottery and different countries may have different regulations.

Please understand I'm supportive of whatever you want to do to get this off the ground... but I just don't want to see anyone get into trouble.

@Nozinan Crowd-funding through a proper channel is all above table and subject to laws and stipulation of not only the government where the crowd-funding site has originated from but also takes into account protection of donors from different countries. Trust that allays any apprehensions you might have.

@MaltActivist

I'm not concerned about crowdfunding. I'm more concerned about a lottery or a raffle. those tend to be more regulated, especially here where the government considers it a revenue source.

To put it in context, I'm not against any of it...I just don't want to see you get into trouble

@MaltActivist I think what @Nozinan is saying is that crowfunding is fine, but if you then take all of the names of people who donated on the crowdfunding site, and then put those names into a raffle, there might be an issue with that.

If the crowd funding site allows the raffle to take place there, then I agree no issues. I think the concern is handling the raffle portion outside of the crowd funding site.

I would be happy to contribute a donation to this type of thing when it gets going, raffle or not :)

MaltActivist lives in Dubai. It's fairly free of the types of strings you are discussing, Nozinan and Scotty. MaltAcitvist could put the whole project, raffle and all, on a website registered in Dubai. I don't think the Canadians or anyone else could touch him. That's why the headquarter for Haliburton, among quite a few other international corps, moved there.

I will have no trouble pulling out a name from a hat as a gesture of gratitude for all the investment in this venture. Thank you all for being concerned. This is a private endeavour and, hence, should not attract any legal attention.

Now on to the burning question: are you in?

Sounds like some fun and a worthwhile endeavour - count me in for some cash towards this if the site admins are ok with this and you can accept PayPal.

There's plenty of crowd sourcing websites where this can be floated too, perhaps that could help you reach your amount quicker?

I am willing to make a contribution to help support this project.