In general, the rule in film production is to do it with someone else's money. If you think this is unfair -- do you think employees of a company should have their retirement investments entirely in the company stock? A star or director is risking his/her reputation (and time) to make a movie, it's not entirely reasonable to expect him/her to double down with his/her own money.

My issue is that fans aren't being asked to take a risk, or even buy the product on spec -- they're being asked to DONATE.