Pass the Hat, Save the Arts?

PARIS - In the early rush to turn crowd-funding online into a new source of public revenue to buy everything from medieval ivory statues in France to a gallery for dinosaur bones in Canada there's a cautionary tale: It doesn't always work.

The Louvre is nearing the end of what appears to be its third successful online fundraising campaign to raise "800,000, or $1.06 million, toward the "2.6 million purchase of two delicate 13th-century statues that complete a carved set of “The Descent From the Cross” that were believed to be lost or destroyed. Already the museum has raised more than 60 percent, or almost "500,000, and has set a deadline of Jan. 31 in its call to save a national treasure from being sold outside France.

Professional auctioneers often use that appeal for much less pricey treasures, entreating bidders to raise their bids to guard the national heritage. But if there is no such pressure, it's much more difficult to persuade people to give a high volume of little donations, such as the "50 contribution that the Louvre collected in its first online campaign in 2010. The prize from that campaign: “The Three Graces,” painted on wood in 1531 by the German artist Lucas Cranach the Elder.

In Germany last spring, Tobias Wolff found out the hard way when his organization, the International Handel Festival in Göttingen, tried to raise "15,000 online to finance a free concert last May. Mr. Wolff, the managing director, pitched the idea directly to potential users in a video where he walked through a cavernous, former engine station where the concert was scheduled to take place.

The festival also offered enticements: a vou cher for a bratwurst and soda for a "25 donation or a custom-designed bottle of wine signed by an artist for "50. But the festival organizers only managed to raise a small fraction of their goal - "540 - with the crowd-funding platform startnext.de.

The result: The money was refunded and the International Handel Festival turned to traditional local foundations to finance the free concert.

The lesson we learned from this little exercise: “You do need an element of pressure to make people donate,” Mr. Wolff said. “We announced that our open-door event would take place in any case, so obviously people didn't have a sufficiently strong feeling that they would have to support us.”