HOLY WOW, YOU PEOPLE ARE AMAZING.
I got a call back in July about helping with this community crowdfunding campaign, and when I heard the goal I kinda gulped … $1.5M seemed like an impossibly steep hill to climb. ‘We ain’t gonna make that,’ I thought.
As you know, Burning Man Project got smacked sideways by COVID, forcing the cancelation of Black Rock City 2020, and putting the future of the event at risk. In order to build a financial bridge to the next Black Rock City, we cut costs and staff, and triaged our operations. But when we needed to go even further, we looked to our community — and we are humbled to report that you’ve responded, demonstrating there’s nothing we can’t do when we work together.
6,247 Burners generously donated (all or part of) their Burning Man 2020 tickets earlier this year, putting $3M back into the coffer. On top of that, our recently completed Community Campaign saw over 8,500 people donating an average of around $116 each, surpassing our goal before the campaign had even ended. In total, the campaign was shared over 6,000 times and garnered over $1.5M.
Over 21,000 people contributed nearly $5M to keep Burning Man alive, which is staggering. Bottom line: HOLY WOW, YOU PEOPLE ARE AMAZING.
Your donations will help us get closer to a Burning Man 2021 in Black Rock City — not all the way, mind you, there’s still a long way to go and a lot to do — but every bit makes a difference. For our part, we’ll continue to stretch every dollar as far as we can, and spend it to the greatest effect possible. We owe you that much.
If you’d like to dive deeper into the details of our situation, see our Big Picture page, which lays all this out. And we’ll remind you that we’re not there yet. We have a lot more financial bridge to build to get us to Black Rock City 2021 (and we’re trying our damndest to get there) — if you can, please donate … and if you know somebody who can, please share this with them.
Meantime, please know we have such incredible gratitude and appreciation — and, frankly, PRIDE — for YOU and what you’ve done to keep this grand experiment alive in the face of daunting challenges. We stand undaunted, and together, we will weather this dust storm. Black Rock City is not only our home, it provides us with valuable tools and resilience to survive and thrive in a dramatically changing world. It’s more important now than ever, and we can’t wait to get back there with you.
THANK YOU!
Cover photo of The Man by George Post (2019)
