The beloved streaming platform has long enabled artists to highlight a piece of music on their profile via the ‘Artist’s Pick’ headline, and now they’ve gone one up and launched a sister version of this feature.
Coined the ‘Artist Fundraising Pick’, this feature allows acts to pin a specific destination on their profile where fan can pay them ‘tips’.
For artists, this can be used in two ways. Artists wishing to use their Fundraising Pick to encourage their fans to pay money to good causes – either via GoFundMe, or direct to a range of causes supported by Spotify’s COVID-19 Music Relief project, or, artists can use Fundraising Pick to encourage their fans to pay them money via a link to one of two endorsed e-wallet services, PayPal.me and Cash App.
This new feature comes at a perfect time for the music industry amid the global pandemic that has crushed live touring income for artists and diminished physical music sales and licensing revenues.
“Given the urgency and impact of the COVID-19 crisis, we’re working as quickly as we can to develop this new product and get it out to as many artists as possible,” Spotify have stated.
“However, we’ve never built a fundraising feature like this before. We consider this a first version that will evolve as we learn how to make it as helpful as possible for the music community.”
As part of the announcement, Cash App (one of Spotify’s new partners) has pledged a $1m fund for artists in the US and UK on the service which has the double benefit of helping acts during a difficult time… while also monetarily incentivising them to use Cash App rather than PayPal.me.
“For this to work, Spotify for Artists users that submit their “$cashtag” username as their Artist Fundraising Pick — and secure at least one monetary contribution through Spotify — will receive an extra $100 in their account from Cash App, until a collective total of $1 million has been contributed.
“This is an incredibly difficult time for many Spotify users and people around the world — and there are many worthy causes to support at this time,” Spotify said.
“With this feature, we simply hope to enable those who have the interest and means to support artists in this time of great need, and to create another opportunity for our COVID-19 Music Relief partners to find the financial support they need to continue working in music and lift our industry.”
This article was originally written by Talia Rinaldo for Forte.
