National funding is for things that can't get done by themselves. If kickstarter works for you, you don't need NEA there are plenty of valuable art undertakings that do not have public appeal. that is what the NEA should be doing.
I admit, it all sounds so strange; we tell ourselves that just because we don't admire their product, the problem must be with us, and we can overcome our unworthiness by public support.
Or maybe they just have good lobbyists?
I'm not saying that a piece of art that no one ever cares about after it's created is valuable, but it's hard to judge the value of art based on current popularity. Plus, the judgement of popularity is influenced by the culture at a given time, and the existence of a given work or works might have a pretty big impact on the course of that culture's evolution -- regardless of its initial ability to gain funding.
There are also the practical difficulties of making sure that the funding request gets in front of the people who'd appreciate the work in question, and that they have the money to be able to afford to donate, and that they're not disinclined from donating for reasons that have nothing to do with the artwork in question (e.g. they think kickstarter is some phishing site, or think there's no point since they can only give a very little bit).
That seams a pretty damming statement against your art, from my point of view.
This is the government. Men with guns come and take bits of my life that I have traded for money away to fund this. If you're willing to go to that length, I'd appreciate some sort of metric whereby the NEA can tell whether or not they're even getting anything for their money, let alone whether it's worth it. I know it's really tempting to just deny any metric of worth can be applied to art, but if you nail art down to the point where only .01% of the population can appreciate it and we have to fund it because the plebians won't.... where's the public interest in this?
(Also, I'm not claiming the NEA has no such standards. Actually I quite believe it does, and in the end those standards are what people actually object to. I'm saying that it isn't viable to continuously keep falling back, saying "No, that's not what art is, no, that's not what art is, no, that's not what art is". This is something taxpayers are funding with their sweat and blood... if they aren't getting anything that can even be vaguely defined without someone challenging that vague definition, then it should just be shut down.)