Financing Sustainability in the Arts Sector: The Case of the Art Bonus Public Crowdfunding Campaign in Italy

REVIEWER 1

REVIEWER 1

Dear Authors,

Thanks for submitting this manuscript aiming to discuss crowdfunding and key factors of successful fundraising strategy through integrating cultural management and cultural policy perspectives based on analyzing the public crowdfunding platform of Art Bonus in Italy. To make it more valuable for the readers, I have some advice bellow:

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We thank the editor and the reviewers for their precise and accurate comments, and we are very grateful for the opportunity to revise the paper.

Thanks to their suggestions, the paper has now been significantly improved, but we are willing to make any further additions or changes if needed.

All the changed are highlighted in the text

As suggested by the editor, we have highlighted in yellow the parts of the manuscript that have been revised, based on the requests for correction or integration proposed by one or more reviewers.

In the abstract, you must pay briefly to subject, practical problem / theoretical gap / contribution, object, methodology, results/implications. How did you conclude in the 2^nd sentences? using “thus” after a short and not-reasoning sentence

The abstract was fully revised, based on your suggestions.

The introduction section should be reinforced with at least 3 recent articles (2019-2021)

In accordance with this suggestion, we have added several recent references to the introduction. This is a list of the new references, introduced in this section:

·      Rubio-Arostegui, J.A.; Villarroya, A. (2021), Patronage as a way out of crisis?

·      Hong, S.; Ryu, J. (2019), Crowdfunding public projects.

·      Herrero, M.; Kraemer, S. (2020), Fundraising as organisational knowing in practice.

·      Massi, M. et al. (2019), Turning crowds into patrons

·      Gianecchini, M. (2020), Strategies and determinants of corporate support to the arts

·      Giannakopoulou, S.; Kaliampakos, D. (2020), Social transformations of cultural heritage: from benefaction to sponsoring

·      Maehle, N.; et al. (2020) Crowdfunding Sustainability.

·      Messeni Petruzzelli, et al. (2019), Panniello, U.; Roma, P. Understanding the crowdfunding phenomenon and its implications for sustainability

·      Sneddon, J.N. et al. (2020), Personal Values and Choice of Charitable Cause: An Exploration of Donors’ Giving Behavior

Sections 2 (The role of fundraising in cultural management and policy) & 3*(Towards an integrated perspective) should be more summarized and sub-sectioned under a section could be called literature review / theoretical background.

We thank the reviewers for the comments. We have changed the title of the section to “Literature Review”, and we have tried to summarize the concept by adding the following subsections: 2.1 Fundraising in the Arts; 2.1.1 Managerial Initiatives to Foster Fundraising: Motivational Studies; .2 The Emerging Role of Crowdfunding

Section 3*(Research context: The “Art Bonus” Scheme) should be sub-sectioned under the next section.

We thank the reviewer for his/her important comment. We have changed the heading for Section 3, which is now referred to as Materials and Methods.

Section 4, Paragraphs in lines 311-344 should be integrated into one paragraph. What’s the difference between the previous methods and yours? Clarify it please.

We have revised the paragraph and it is now placed under the subheading: “Data Collection”. Regarding previous data used by Civita and the European Union, the data have been provided directly from the Ministry of Culture and we have specified that.

Section 5: please describe briefly the state of 2017-now, in a right place (maybe in conclusion)

We thank the reviewer, as this data was not part of the analysis. We have used data extracted from the official communication of the Ministry of Culture and we added a paragraph in the section addressing future research with the invitation to investigate the effects of the pandemic on donations.

Section 6*(Discussion and implications for management): please comprise your findings with more than 2 previous study. Also, comprise your implications with more recent works in terms of contributions made by you.

We thank the reviewer for his/her suggestions. In the Discussion section, we now discuss our results in relation to previous studies, such as: Massi et al. (2019), Dolores et al. (2021), and Ramos (2014).

Section 6*(Conclusions): pleases talk more about further research.

We thank the reviewer for this suggestion. At the end of the Conclusion section, we added a specific paragraph focusing on future research.

Please, check the template format and fill in the complementary information at the end of paper, including Author Contributions, etc.

We apologize for our previous mistakes; we have now formatted the paper according to the journal’s submission requirements, and we added Author Contributions.

Please use at least two-words phrases instead of single words in your keywords.

We changed the keywords to address this comment.

*It is expected to check carefully the manuscript before the submission.

The paper has been proofread by a native English speaker at a professional editing/proofreading service to correct the previous mistakes and to verify the accuracy of the revisions we integrated into the manuscript after this review.

The main title of manuscript could be changed:

Financing the Sustainability in the Arts Sector: Case of Art Bonus Public fundraising campaign in Italy

We thank the reviewer. As suggested, we have changed the title.

Please check the following papers could be useful in sections 2-3-3!

[1] (2020). Crowdfunding Sustainability. In Advances in Crowdfunding (pp. 393-422). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
[2] (2019). Understanding the crowdfunding phenomenon and its implications for sustainability. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 141, 138-148.
[3] (2019). Turning crowds into patrons: Democratizing fundraising in the arts and culture. In The Routledge Companion to Arts Management (pp. 409-424). Routledge.
[4] (2018). Crowdfunding as an alternative means for funding sustainable appropriate technology: Acceptance determinants of backers. Sustainability, 10(5), 1456.
[5] (2018). Prospects and options for sustainable and inclusive crowdfunding in African cities. In Crowdfunding and Sustainable Urban Development in Emerging Economies (pp. 211-231). IGI Global.
[6] (2014). Crowdfunding and the role of managers in ensuring the sustainability of crowdfunding platforms. JRC Scientific and Policy Reports, 85752.

Thank you for these suggestions. We found these references to be very interesting and stimulating, and we added all of them to our paper, in some cases to the Introduction section and the Literature Review section.

REVIEWER 2

Authors’ Response

Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript. The research topic is very interesting and current. In many countries, including Italy, the growth in donations in support of cultural heritage represents an important response to the progressive shrinking of the public welfare system.

We thank the editor and the reviewers for their precise and accurate comments, and we are very grateful for the opportunity to revise the paper.

Thanks to their suggestions, the paper has now been significantly improved, but we are willing to make any further additions or changes if needed.

As suggested by the editor, we have highlighted in yellow the parts of the manuscript that have been revised, based on the requests for correction or integration proposed by one or more reviewers.

The document is well-argued. The strength of the study is the description of the role of fundraising in managerial and political culture (sections 2 and 3). Instead, in my opinion, the abstract and introduction need to be improved, which do not contain any reference to the methodological approach followed.

Thank you for this suggestion. With reference to the corrections and integrations made to abstract and the Introduction section, see the following lines.

Furthermore, the characteristics that distinguish donations from other forms of private funding for culture do not emerge. For example, unlike cultural sponsorship, where the commercial exploitation of historical and artistic heritage is often all too evident, patronage generally enjoys a better reputation.

Analyzing the advantages/disadvantages of donations compared to other forms of private financing could help clarify the reasons that led the Italian legislator to focus heavily on the Artbonus. Specifically, unlike other financing methods (and as specified in your paper), through the crowdfunding platform, anyone can contribute to the financing of cultural activity (even ordinary citizens), and not just profit-oriented businesses. Furthermore, the recipient of the loan has no commercial obligation towards the lender.

We thank the reviewer for his/her important suggestion. We added a paragraph at the end of Section 2.1, emphasizing the importance of donations in comparison to other forms of funding. We also highlighted this concept in the Introduction section and at the end of the paper.

1) Abstract:

• Although it emerges clearly from the abstract what is the theme and purpose of the study (i.e. identifying the main innovative features introduced by the Artbonus government campaign), there is no synthetic description of the research methodology adopted, the main results obtained as well as their interpretation general.

The abstract was fully revised, based on your suggestions, which now include: brief literature overview, the state of the arts and a synthetic description of the main results.

2) Introduction:

• I suggest framing the introduction in a broader context, highlighting the link between the arts sector and the issue of sustainability (financial, but also socio-cultural).
• Lines 68–71 contain the definition of crowdfunding. However, to ensure a better understanding of the paper for non-expert readers of the magazine, it would be appropriate to deepen in the introduction the main differences/similarities between crowdfunding and traditional fundraising (in-depth information that is currently only mentioned in section 3).
• Lines 44-48 mention the different segments of donors (private individuals, banks, companies/profit, and non-profit organizations, etc.) and the various financing channels to ensure financial sustainability in the artistic sector (company sponsorship, fundraising events, donations, etc.). But what are the advantages that fundraising (and crowdfunding in particular) can guarantee to organizations, private citizens and public bodies compared to other sources of funding for culture? What are the main differences compared to other forms of financing?
• Explain in the introduction why the study focuses on Italy, and what are the main differences in crowdfunding compared to other countries. How do Artbonus-like initiatives undertaken by other nations differ?
• A brief description of the methodological approach detailed in the "Materials and Methods" section is missing in the introduction. Furthermore, I would dwell more on the gaps in the literature that are partly filled by your work.

Thank you for these punctual suggestions. Based on your input, we changed the text in the Introduction section so it is more coherent. Our changes are highlighted in yellow in the new version of the manuscript. We tried to consider every single aspect of your suggestions about how to revise this part of the paper.

3) Materials and Method

• From lines 293–294 it emerges that the descriptive analysis was conducted in the development/launch phase of the platform before its entry into full operation. In this sense, we would expect a growing trend of donations in the first three years (2014-2016). An interesting fact to report in the study could relate to the actual trend (growth or decrease) from year to year of the donations made. From 2016 onwards, the level of donations may have stabilized, remaining roughly constant (a hypothesis that could be confirmed or denied by future analyzes conducted on data after 2016).

We thank the reviewer for his/her suggestions, which we found to be coherent and thoughtful.  As data was extracted manually from the website, the platform artbonus.gov did not provide the date of the donations; thus, thus, it was not possible to determine the amount of the donations for each year. Moreover, we considered the data as aggregate data on the first biennium in order to make the data comparable to the previous years of analysis (data from Civita).

We cited the aggregate data communicated by the Ministry on the amount collected every year to show the increasing trend and to encourage further research.

4) Results.

• The breakdowns between the various areas expressed in percentages/amounts and present in written form in the text could be summarized through bar or pie diagrams, which are more immediate and easier to interpret.
• Table 2 was inserted before it was mentioned in the text.

We thank the reviewer for his/her suggestion. We have partly transformed the tables into a chart and we added figures and tables to better show the reader the data that were used.

We have rearranged the order of the tables. 

5) Conclusion and policy implications

• The “Conclusions” section can be summarized. Beware of typos present (untranslated part).

As suggested, we have summarized the conclusion and added a few notes. The paper has been proofread by a native speaker at a professional editing/proofreading service to correct the previous mistakes and to verify the accuracy of the revisions we integrated into the manuscript after this review.

6) Additional tips:

• The citations inserted in the text do not follow the guidelines of the journal.

Now, the paper should fully comply with the journal’s submission guidelines.

7) Useful references on ethical issues related to fundraising and other forms of private funding for culture:

• MacQuillin, I., Sargeant, A. Fundraising Ethics: A Rights-Balancing Approach. J Bus Ethics 160, 239-250 (2019).
• Dolores, L.; Macchiaroli, M.; De Mare, G. Sponsorship's Financial Sustainability for Cultural Conservation and Enhancement Strategies: An Innovative Model for Sponsees and Sponsors. Sustainability 2021, 13, 9070
• Giannakopoulou, S.; Kaliampakos, D. Social transformations of cultural heritage: From benefaction to sponsoring: Evidence from mountain regions in Greece. J. Mt. Sci. 2020, 17, 1475–1490

Thank you for these suggestions. We found these references to be very interesting and stimulating, and we added all of them to our paper, in some cases both to the Introduction section and the Literature Review section.

REVIEWER 3

Authors' Response

This manuscript takes a dual perspective, integrating cultural management and cultural policy through the discussion of the case of Art Bonus. It provides the evidence of the conditions for the implementation of successful civic crowdfunding and the implication for managers of cultural organizations by discussing the results of the implementation of the Art Bonus. The perspective is new but the problem has not been well explained. And some concerns should be addressed below:

We thank the editor and the reviewers for their precise and accurate comments, and we are very grateful for the opportunity to revise the paper.

Thanks to their suggestions, the paper has been significantly improved, but we are willing to make any further additions or changes if needed.

As suggested by the editor, we have highlighted in yellow the parts of the manuscript that have been revised, based on the requests for correction or integration proposed by one or more reviewers.

1. The references cited are too old. It is recommended to update the latest literature.

We made a concerted effort to consider more recent references and to integrate them into our work.. More specifically, this is a list of the newest references we have introduced:

Dolores, L.; Macchiaroli, M.; De Mare, G. Sponsorship’s Financial Sustainability for Cultural Conservation and Enhancement Strategies: An Innovative Model for Sponsees and Sponsors. Sustain. 2021, Vol. 13, Page 9070 2021, 13, 9070, doi:10.3390/SU13169070

· Gianecchini, M. Strategies and determinants of corporate support to the arts: Insights from the Italian context. Eur. Manag. J. 2020, 38, 308–318, doi:10.1016/J.EMJ.2019.08.007.

· Herrero, M.; Kraemer, S. Fundraising as organisational knowing in practice: Evidence from the arts and higher education in the UK. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark. 2020, 25, e1673, doi:10.1002/NVSM.1673.

· Hong, S.; Ryu, J. Crowdfunding public projects: Collaborative governance for achieving citizen co-funding of public goods. Gov. Inf. Q. 2019, 36, 145–153, doi:10.1016/J.GIQ.2018.11.009.

· MacQuillin, I.; Sargeant, A. Fundraising Ethics: A Rights-Balancing Approach. J. Bus. Ethics 2019, 160, 239–250, doi:10.1007/S10551-018-3872-8/TABLES/1.

· Massi, M.; Mion Dalle Carbonare, P.; Turrini, A. Turning crowds into patrons : Democratizing fundraising in the arts and culture. In The Routledge Companion to Arts Management; Byrnes, W.J., Brkić, A., Eds.; Routledge, 2019; pp. 409–424 ISBN 9781351030861

· Moon, Y.; Hwang, J. Crowdfunding as an Alternative Means for Funding Sustainable Appropriate Technology: Acceptance Determinants of Backers. Sustain. 2018, Vol. 10, Page 1456 2018, 10, 1456, doi:10.3390/SU10051456.

· Rubio-Arostegui, J.A.; Villarroya, A. Patronage as a way out of crisis? the case of major cultural institutions in Spain. Cult. Trends 2021, doi:10.1080/09548963.2021.1986670.

· Settembre Blundo, D.; García Muiña, F.E.; Fernández del Hoyo, A.P.; Riccardi, M.P.; Maramotti Politi, A.L. Sponsorship and patronage and beyond: PPP as an innovative practice in the management of cultural heritage. J. Cult. Herit. Manag. Sustain. Dev. 2017, 7, 147–163, doi:10.1108/JCHMSD-08-2016-0045/FULL/PDF

· McCaskill, J.R.; Harrington, J.R. Revenue Sources and Social Media Engagement Among Environmentally Focused Nonprofits. J. Public Nonprofit Aff. 2017, 3, 309–319, doi:10.20899/JPNA.3.3.309-319.

· Chirisa, I.; Mukarwi, L.; Rajab Mutamanda, A. Prospects and Options for Sustainable and Inclusive Crowdfunding in African Cities. In Crowdfunding and Sustainable Urban Development in Emerging Economies; Benna, U.G., Benna, A.U., Eds.; IGI Global, 2018; pp. 211–231.

· Giannakopoulou, S.; Kaliampakos, D. Social transformations of cultural heritage: from benefaction to sponsoring: Evidence from mountain regions in Greece. J. Mt. Sci. 2020, 17, 1475–1490, doi:10.1007/S11629-019-5928-3

· Maehle, N.; Otte, P.P.; Drozdova, N. Crowdfunding Sustainability. In Advances in Crowdfunding; Shneor, R., Zhao, L., Flåten, B.-T., Eds.; Palgrave Macmillan: Cham, 2020; pp. 393–422.

· Messeni Petruzzelli, A.; Natalicchio, A.; Panniello, U.; Roma, P. Understanding the crowdfunding phenomenon and its implications for sustainability. Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 2019, 141, 138–148

· Sneddon, J.N.; Evers, U.; Lee, J.A. Personal Values and Choice of Charitable Cause: An Exploration of Donors’ Giving Behavior: Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Q. 2020, 49, 803–826, doi:10.1177/0899764020908339

2. Table 1 shows the donations of Area A. It is recommended to add tables for Area B and C.

We thank the reviewer for this comment. In Table 1, we break down the characteristics of the recipient organizations. As other reviewers advised, we chose to use figures rather than tables. We added a table for Area B, as you requested. Area C only refers to donations to the ongoing activities of theatres; thus, the different categories are not applicable.

3. The logic of the introduction is a little confused and does not define a good problem.

We have revised the text in the Introduction section, based on your suggestion. Our changes are highlighted in yellow in the new version of the manuscript. In particular, we tried to better define the gap in the current research and denote our contribution to fill it.

4. The analysis of the results should be more detailed than just descriptive analysis.

We thank the reviewer for his/her suggestion. We have tried to deepen the analysis by including figures and charts. Furthermore, we have tried to improve the discussion of the results in relation to previous studies, such as Massi et al. (2019), Dolores et al. (2021), and Ramos (2014).

The most serious problem is the format of the paper, such as indentation, row spacing and spelling mistakes. Here are some mistakes I found: “mangers” in line 21; line 96 is missing a period; the indentation of line 314 is different from the context, and some paragraphs do not even have indentation.

The paper has been proofread by a native speaker at a professional editing/proofreading service to correct the previous mistakes and to verify the accuracy of the revisions we integrated into the manuscript after this review.

I don't understand what the paragraph in line 573 means. Is it a translation error?

It was a mistake; we apologize for the inconvenience.

This is a paper with a clear contribution to the knowledge, well structured and clear. Although there are two suggestions.

We thank the editor and the reviewers for their precise and accurate comments, and we are very grateful for the opportunity to revise the paper.

Thanks to their suggestions, the paper has been significantly improved, but we are willing to make any further additions or changes if needed.

As suggested by the editor, we have highlighted in yellow the parts of the manuscript that have been revised, based on the requests for correction or integration proposed by one or more reviewers.

Firstly, the main question established (230 line) could be reformulated in a more general way, no particularly in the study case.

We thank the reviewer for his/her suggestion; the research questions are now:

1) Which of the three key factors for a successful fundraising campaign can be applied to a civic crowdfunding campaign in the arts sector?

2) What indications does a civic crowdfunding campaign in the arts sector provide for the development and enrichment of the theory on these key factors?

Secondly, there is an entire paragraph in Italian.

It was a mistake; we apologize for the inconvenience.