How can it help you fulfill your dreams?
You would love to live from what you do best and share your talent with the whole world, but the problem is that this does not bring you money. Now, thanks to modern patrons, you can earn income for your projects. Do you know what Patreon is?
If you are an artist and want to get funding for your work, whatever type it may be, now you have tools that will allow you to earn monthly income through micro-patronage. If you want to know what Patreon is, keep reading.
What is Patreon?
It may have happened to you: you love to draw or you are a guitar ace, but you cannot make a living from what you truly like, your passion. The world of art is complicated when it comes to making a place for yourself, and it is important that you know how to get money for your projects and be able to live from it.
In old times there were patrons, people who made financial contributions to an artist because they liked what they did. Today, this figure also exists and can help you achieve your dream—how? With monthly donations to your account while your project lasts.
Patreon was born in San Francisco, United States, in 2013, and since its creation thousands of artists and creators from all over the world have registered on its platform. For now, it is in English and there are not many projects in Spanish, but some like Jaime Altozano, a YouTuber, are on this platform to share their videos about music and film.
At its core, it is a system of crowdfunding that works with small donations. There are already platforms dedicated to this type of fundraising, but this is the first that establishes a series of monthly payments for the artist until their work is finished. It works by requesting small amounts of money periodically.
Anyone can register as a patron to help young artists and creators develop their projects. Each follower’s contribution will be what they consider appropriate, and they can invest in several projects at the same time.
How Patreon works
To access this platform, registration is necessary. On the page, there are two types of profiles you can sign up for:
- Creators: you can sign up no matter what profile you have if you like to write, want to dedicate yourself to illustration, sculpture, be a YouTuber, influencer, poet… whatever makes you happy and that you want to share with the world
Once registered, you must convince your followers to make donations to your project because it is something innovative or different that needs their help to move forward. To convince your followers, you should make a post or video explaining what your project consists of and what you will offer each of your followers with each donation.
In the case of YouTube channels, patrons can receive in return for their donation additional content, interviews with you, or a gift. All this depends on the creator and the system they want to establish to reward their followers.
On the other hand, the platform also has a tool of gamification that rewards those followers who make more contributions or participate more in the creator’s project. Finally, you will be the one to choose how you want to receive the donations: it can be monthly or you can get it when the project ends. It is a purely personal option.
- Patrons: these are the followers of each creator, as patrons or supporters they make a financial contribution to the project or projects they have previously chosen among all those registered on the page.
Besides being able to choose the project and the artists they want to help, they can also select the amount they want to contribute to each of them depending on their own interests and personal tastes. On the other hand, donations can be one-time to a specific project or can extend over time as long as the follower wants, also choosing whether to do it monthly or periodically. To make the payment, the platform works in dollars and accepts both credit and debit cards and the PayPal payment system.
