Primtings Campaign has met its goal of raising L$251,251 — in 10 days! It all started with this letter from Ina Centaur, posted to the Primtings blog on Oct 9. The letter hinted at the soul-moving background of Primtings Museum — how it was started by a SL artist without any external funding, and how it’s managed to survive three years purely through support from the SL community — Primtings has managed to upkeep a sim-sized museum while keeping true to the quixotic ideals of that founding artist — a free and open museum. The letter also tried establishing a primting – prim’d painting – as a unique new form of art, “beyond mere replica.”

Residents of SL who have been to Primtings Museum can appreciate its significant contribution to both the virtual art world and to RL education — and edification beyond. Founder Ina Centaur describes this experience as, “Once you visit Primtings, you remember it. For life. For good.”

Along with a series of three different IM advocation messages, Ina Centaur’s letter was sent  as a notecard with LM to about 5,500 visitors to Primtings Museum since 2008 (minus those who opted out). Here’s for tracking the Campaign, starting from the first Primtings Messenger IM (All times in PST):

October 9 @ 8 AM: Primtings Campaign needs your help to keep Primtings open for the next 6 months. Enclosed is an open letter to our current and future patrons. Help us raise tier by Oct 21 deadline! – http://campaign.primtings.com or TP to the Primtings sim to donate

Subsequently, L$84,056 was donated via 102 donations by 91 unique avatars (datetime>=’2010-10-09′ AND datetime<=’2010-10-14 12:00:00′).  As you can tell from the campaign metrics graph below, the donation rate started slowing down midweek. A second IM was sent:

October 14 @ noon: Since its beginning, Primtings has been an open museum – despite being sim-sized, artists are not charged commission or upfront; visitors are not charged fees. Primtings Campaign, beyond the ‘3d paintings’, is about keeping that idealistic principle of ‘art for art’ alive. We are entirely dependent on your donation – we are at our halfway point with 7 days left. Please help keep Primtings going – http://campaign.primtings.com has the latest campaign details.

This second period raised L$102,371 via 57 donations by 52 unique avatars (datetime>’2010-10-14 12:00:00′ AND datetime<=’2010-10-19 16:30:00′). With two days left, and L$40k off, Primtings might or might not make it! A third and final IM was sent:

October 19 @ 4:30 PM: Did you know that some of our exhibits are created by SL artists who have passed away? These primtings will be lost forever if Primtings closes down! 48 hours left in Primtings Campaign with less than L$40,000 needed to reach Primtings Campaign’s goal of L$251,251 to pay 6 month’s nonprofit tier to keep Primtings alive for 6 more months. Please help us make this last stretch! Check out http://campaign.primtings.com for the up-to-the-second-barring-SL-lag campaign total.

In the hours since then and now, 15 unique avatars made 18 donations, totaling L$35,720. (datetime>’2010-10-19 16:30:00′ )

As of this writing at 10PM PST on October 19, Primtings Campaign has broken over its goal to L$253,796 (starting at L$31,149 remaining from the previous round, before campaign start).

The graph below shows the pCampaign Donations Total by Day — starting from October 9, when the campaign message was first sent. The size of each dot represents the number of transactions per day. Data is from the Primtings Campaign API (Totals for 2010b and Transactions for 2010b)

Primtings Campaign launched in early 2010, and was  the only source of funds for the Museum’s first 6 months of sim tier in 2010. New to this round was the suggestion by a Primtings Board member of putting donation kiosks right next to each Primting. This “Primtings Donate Anywhere [inside Primtings sim]” contributed L$86,314 via 121 donations (109 unique avatars) to the 2010b pCampaign Total. These any-donation-amount bins included donations ranging from L$1 to L$10,000.

2010-10-20 L$238,756 was cashed out at L$260:US$1 for $885 to meet 6 months nonprofit island sim tier.

A live running list of donations since the beginning of pCampaign (2010a and b) with patron names anonymized is available via the pCampaign API here.