At the juncture of funding, policy, and technology: how promising is match-funding of arts and culture through crowdfunding platforms?

Despite its ubiquity in arts and culture, crowdfunding has limitedly been instrumentalized in policy settings. Yet, with joint contributions by friends, fans, governments, and quasi-public institutions, match-funding of arts and culture through crowdfunding platforms may have benefits: increased revenues for makers and cultural fields, transparency in funding allocation, and stronger community engagement. Drawing upon interviews with regional and local match-funding entities in the Netherlands, we explain how and why they engage in match-funding and what is needed for the collaborative funding mechanism to thrive. Funders are attracted by match-funding’s potential to support relatively large numbers of hitherto underserved makers with relatively small amounts of money, complementary to other funding instruments. Aspects largely overlooked are match-funding’s capacity to leverage resources and install co-decisive processes of public funding allocation. Situated at the juncture of funding, policy, and technology, match-funding requires learning and experimentation with other than reward-based formats to unleash its democratizing potential.