{"id":13674,"date":"2019-09-09T13:36:52","date_gmt":"2019-09-09T18:36:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/online.berklee.edu\/takenote\/?p=13674"},"modified":"2026-01-20T17:22:01","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T22:22:01","slug":"bandzoogle-steps-into-the-crowdfunding-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/online.berklee.edu\/takenote\/bandzoogle-steps-into-the-crowdfunding-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Bandzoogle Steps Into the Crowdfunding Game"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How Bandzoogle Is Empowering Musicians with Commission-Free Crowdfunding and Direct Fan Support<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The crowdfunding landscape is a microcosm of the modern music industry: it keeps on changing, and in Darwinian fashion, only the strong survive. This is true for crowdfunding platforms as well as the artists who utilize these platforms, and since the very public dissolution of PledgeMusic, another institution has stepped up to fill the void with a music-specific crowdfunding platform: Bandzoogle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bandzoogle, which began as a web-hosting platform in 2003, is having an unusually busy year with all of its new offerings, but more on that later. Bandzoogle\u2019s Director of Artist & Industry Outreach, Dave Cool says that the company approached the opportunity to get into the crowdfunding business very carefully, since the company had a good relationship with Pledge and its co-founder Benji Rogers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe knew our tools could be used for crowdfunding,\u201d says Cool. \u201cBut we decided not to position it that way out of respect for Benji because, at the end of the day, we knew that they were most likely doing it better than we could.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CHECK OUT BERKLEE ONLINE’S CROWDFUNDING PODCAST<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in May of 2019, PledgeMusic declared bankruptcy after not being able to pay artists a backlog of approximately $1-3 million dollars. Bandzoogle ended the partnership after learning more about the situation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think many of us were a little bit caught off-guard by the severity,\u201d says Cool. \u201cSo we had a discussion internally that maybe it was time that we frame our features, which are all direct-to-fan features, and they can be combined in a way that you can very easily run a crowdfunding campaign. \u2026 It\u2019s one of these things where there wasn\u2019t a big plan. It was more wanting to do something for the musician community, like \u2018Hey, what happened really sucks. You can use our platform to crowdfund your next project.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the wake of the PledgeMusic debacle, many musicians expressed a distrust of online crowdfunding. The Bandzoogle team wanted to create a feature that would give musicians what they need, but without the financial hangup. Unlike most crowdfunding platforms, Bandzoogle takes no commission fees, though it does cost $8-$20 per month to keep your site running through Bandzoogle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we discussed crowdfunding, taking a cut never came up because that\u2019s just not something Bandzoogle has ever done,\u201d says Cool. \u201cWe don\u2019t touch your money and your sales will still be reported to SoundScan, if that\u2019s important to you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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