1. Introduction to Crowdfunding Workshop #McrVSA
Welcome, this will be a quick overview of crowdfunding and the channels you may use

2. What is Crowdfunding?
Crowdfunding is a practice of funding a project by raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people
They allow organisations or individuals to ask the general public or target donors to pledge funds for specific projects over a short space of time. Its not a long term solution to funding issues
Project must have a start and end date
Has anyone ran a crowdfunding campaign before?
Has anyone donated to a crowdfunding page before?

3. What are the opportunities for charities and community groups?
Crowdfunding offers the opportunity to:
Build support for projects
Publicise your work
Reach new audiences
Tap into new sources of funding-unrestricted in terms of monitoring

4. What do you need to run a successful campaign?
Support from staff
Creative and innovative approach
Planning
Marketing and social media skills
Time
Wide engaged social networks
Engaging pitch- 30 second lift pitch!
The personal touch

5. The Crowdfunding Process
1) Develop idea for project
- Prove the need
-Research
-define your aims and objectives
-define your timescale
2) Choose the right platform
3) Go Live!
-donation window opens
-marketing and social media campaign starts
-keep audience engaged
4) Donors/public pledge money
-if project doesn’t reach total at this stage, money might be returned to donors
5) Project development
-communicate success with donors and keep audience engaged
You need to be able to justify why there is a need for what you are doing, do your research define some aims and objectives. Aim is long term, and objectives are what are you going to do in order to achieve the aim. Draw up a timeline of this process- when each stage is going to happen and who needs to be involved
Research different platforms, which will be most affective for your campaign and where does your audience sit the most? We’ll have a brief look at 3 platforms now
You need to make a fuss about the launch, it helps to build the momentum – plan the marketing plan before hand
When you have a full online presence, you should see donations coming through, or at least some sort of engagement and conversations- be sure to monitor what's working and what's not working throughout your campaign
This is when your project takes shape, and also when you need to ensure your audience is kept up to date with how its going, especially the donors
Activity -

6. Platform
Features
Crowdfunder
Supports projects of all sizes
All or nothing and keep what you raise
They take 8% of what you raise (5% fee and 3% transaction fee)
Up to 8 weeks campaign
JustGiving Projects
Get what you raise
They take 5% of what you raise
Chuffed.org
Social causes only
100% free
Keep what you raise
Payment processing fee for donor