The plan: Artist duo Nick Butcher and Nadine Nakanishi would buy a house in 2022 to combat rising rent. They’d combine their living and working spaces into a graphic art studio in the basement.
The reality: After closing on the house, the artists—together called Sonnenzimmer—saw the bills rack up.
The 100-year-old house in Chicago, Illinois, needed repairs: The basement leaked. Parts of the home had no foundation wall. The chimney, roof, hot water heater, HVAC, and flooring were overdue for upgrades. That’s no spot for a thriving screen-printing shop.
“We knew we needed help,” Butcher says—and they needed it fast to be able to keep Sonnenzimmer’s practice going.
But the pair, who have been co-creating for 20 years, also knew they couldn’t rack up more debt with a high-interest home improvement loan. Was crowdfunding (think Kickstarter or GoFundMe) the answer? Kind of.
“We knew that we could probably reach out to our community for that help, but . . . we didn’t want it to feel sad. We didn’t want it to feel extractive,” Butcher says.
Then, Nakanishi thought: What if we ask for money—but then give it back?
“Printmaking is always an exchange,” she says. “It’s generative, it’s generous, and it only lives when it passes through people’s hands and houses . . . It is through that multitude that it exists. The flowthrough energy had to match that.”
So, they came up with a new plan. They call it: Sunraiser.
In Sonnenzimmer’s experimental solution, they’d offer design work (their labor) to a local nonprofit as a return on the funds they receive from others. You give, they give—the support is always in motion.
Butcher and Nakanishi found creative tech nonprofit netizen.org. They tested out the relationship for a few months, creating a brand identity and consulting on their online visuals.
Next, they launched the crowdfunding campaign: They gave themselves two months to raise $60,000, spreading the word to friends and their community. Over 260 people supported Sonnenzimmer—and in return received an art print, publication, record, or bumper sticker. But they weren’t just physical gifts.
“Folks donating to our Sunraiser were not only supporting us,” Sonnenzimmer wrote in their case study manual. “That energy (and capital) supported netizen.org, flowing through us and right back into our community.”
And it worked, mostly. Sonnenzimmer “sunraised” around $24,000 after shipping, taxes, and other fees. And they’ve been working out of their home studio since September thanks to that circle of support.
For nearly a year, Sonnenzimmer held “regular, rigorous meetings and collaboration” with netizen.org, co-founder Jon Satrom says. He said the partnership gave netizen.org direction and clarity—without feeling transactional or capitalistic.
“It felt more like an artistic collaboration,” Satrom says. “We had an opportunity to geek out with some really talented experts and came away with something that was this really interesting meeting in the middle that just would never have happened without minds and talents like Nick and Nadine.”
But in true Midwest fashion, Sonnenzimmer credits others: their believers, their people, and their circle.
“There’s no limits to helping each other,” Nakanishi says. “You know, do what you love and put it in the community that cares about it. And that reverberation can carry far.”