Brief Intro

PLAYGROUND DETROIT is a creative agency and gallery based in Detroit, Michigan. I had the opportunity to oversee the design and execution of an exciting crowdfunding campaign for them in the winter of 2016. Together, we built an eye-catching visual experience chock-full of video and photography reflecting the immense talent of Detroit artists – and raised significant funds towards the renovation of an abandoned Detroit building into an artistic, entrepreneurial and community-oriented performance and gallery space.

Client

–      Playground Detroit

Date

–      December 2016

The process of building Playground Detroit’s (PD) successful Kickstarter campaign really began with identifying the unique benefits that PD brings to the Detroit art scene and the civic community. Their extensive and deep connections into the creative world of the Motor City – and its artistic sister cities like Brooklyn – enabled us to leverage the support of artists speaking as and for artists. The campaign became both a platform for artists to speak about the need for civic art space in a quickly-changing urban environment as well as a marketplace for those same artists to exhibit and sell their creations. This virtuous circle lifted up the entire PD community and raised the profile of our work tremendously.

Much of the work of building a successful marketing or crowdfunding campaign lies in solid project management – a kind of air traffic control of all of the inter-dependent pieces dancing around the chess board. In close daily collaboration with our clients, we orchestrated videography, photography, copy writing, social media content calendaring, existing donor management, new donor prospecting, philanthropic and organizational support outreach, web development, and much more. The strength of our project management early on paid off when the campaign went live and, most importantly, when it entered its final stretch. As in all campaigns, you can’t always predict what will happen but you can prepare yourself for success by anticipating multiple outcomes and reacting with agility and supreme flexibility.

"Justin and his team were genuinely enthusiastic to work with us on our crowdfunding campaign and were a pleasure to work with! Their experience combined with their unmatched passion and energy pushed us through the challenges of planning, executing and crossing the campaign finish line."
–Paulina Petkoski, Executive Director of Playground Detroit

Earned Media

News Mentions

–      100+

Social Media Reach

–      250,000+