Reinventing art in service of consumption

What prompted the creation of Fun(d)rising?

In 2019, we conceived The Hope Gallery, a somewhat magical platform aimed at modernizing fundraising. The idea is to allow engaged artists to rally their audiences around causes they care about through their art: by unveiling a unique artwork, photographed and then hidden on our platform. Each euro donated reveals a fragment (a pixel), visually measuring the goal being achieved: first in an artwork, then in real life. This animation quickly became a successful mechanism used to increase the engagement of participants in charity galas … and the idea came to us to launch new innovative and gamified experiences, beyond art and donation, to create connections, unite, and humanize the collective, everywhere and for everyone. Fun(d)rising was born: the first platform that inspires the desire to be and do together through a range of creative and playful experiences.

How do you reinvent the online and offline experience to generate positive impact?

Just as with our artistic experiences, we enchant engagement by changing the narratives: no guilt or moralization, but rather, surprise, excitement, playfulness, beauty, innovation … We put the human and the participant at the center.

In practice, our mechanism involves capturing an individual action (providing an email, making a donation, reaching a goal) that triggers a personalized animation, an immediate gratification.

To achieve this, each experience is a mini-site deployed online and therefore accessible at any time (via mobile, computer, etc.), without downloading an application. And the animation can be isolated if one wishes to add a “presentational” dimension and display the cumulative participation in real time, on a screen visible to all (as during our events: on TV, giant screen, or sometimes directly on a wall, via a video projector).

Why should brands include consumers as actors in their products or services?

Because consumers no longer buy just a product or service because they are told about it, they buy a response to a need, recognition of their individual values, alignment of vision (the famous “why”) … and a tribe that goes with it.

It’s a subtlety of the hyper-digitalized and noisy world we live in, but the need to be and do together is growing because it resonates with our humanity and makes us feel stronger, it’s reassuring.

Does this product or service correspond to who I am? To the world I want to see tomorrow? And do I recognize myself in the people who consume or produce X?

Moreover, from a neurological point of view, our brains create memories when they experience strong emotions. So, we have a choice: either we create trauma, we shock; or we inspire something positive, we value. Being inclusive and creating collective engagement thus allows to solve the famous “loss of meaning”: we create a momentum, a joyful memory, with a passive consumer by inviting them to participate in a common story, to which they contribute. We go beyond simple words in a manifesto; we show each consumer that he or she matters, that we respect their support, their time, their involvement, their purchase.

What project are you most proud of?

Unanimously, with Ambroise (my partner), we think of the action we took in the midst of the pandemic in the subway. All our events had just been canceled, and, in urgency, with the fear of closing our young company, we wondered how our technology could be useful.

Five days later, the “Grateful Confined” operation was launched, which lasted 5 weeks: all Lyonnais were invited by our partner artists to donate on our platform to finance meals for hospital staff deprived of canteens. We collected their first names to generate messages of support, displayed on their daily commutes via the 18 Clear Channel screens in the Lyon subway … For donors, there was even an inspiring counterpart, offered by our artists: every euro donated allowed them to receive a black and white artwork by email, to print and color.

We received many messages thanking us for putting art and positivity in the subway during this period; it was a local punch thrown in a hurry, and yet it was really appreciated.