Our Manchester crowdfunding - with £60k of match pledges available

Our Manchester on Spacehive Manchester City Council is launching the new “OurManchester” Hive on crowdfunding platform Spacehive with a pledge pot of £60,000 for your local projects. Anyone can make great ideas happen through crowdfunding! What could you or your organisation do to make Manchester an even better place to live and work? Come to … Continue reading

Crowdfunding - keeping momentum during your campaign

Crowdfunding campaign - tips for effective action You’ve got a brilliant idea; uploaded a video; done your action plan; drafted press releases; built up your twitter and Facebook following; got your initial donors to pledge immediately and then you’ve launched. If you’ve done the work above you’re on track for a successful result. You should … Continue reading

The State of crowdfunding in the UK

The crowdfunding market  “Crowdfunding has the potential to be the biggest revolution in finance of the 21st Century”. Jimmy McLoughlin, Deputy Director of Policy, Institute of Directors Crowdfunding is a growing part of the business funding landscape. In 2012 £350m was raised which grew to £2,337m in 2014 - an average growth of 410%. Average amounts raised in … Continue reading

Crowdfunding festivals - tips for a successful campaign

Arts, film or music festivals are crowdfunding  They should be easier than most ventures to fund as they generally have a team developing the festival backed by performers, artists, back room staff, business and the community - who all should want the festival to happen. Made in China a Dublin film festival  raised €1315 of €1123 … Continue reading

Who is your crowd and how can you entice them to support your crowdfunding campaign

Social media has enabled crowdfunding campaigns to reach friends, family and known supporters across time and space But what about the crowd you don’t know, who might donate - if they only knew you were there? Can we learn from research into social network habits and social networkers?    In most online communities 1% actively … Continue reading

Crowdfunding lessons from history - The Statue of Liberty

The story of the Statuettes of Liberty and the Media tycoon The Statue of Liberty was a gift from the French for America’s centennial in 1876 to celebrate the French ideals of the republic; the friendship between the countries and the American democracy. France provided arms, ships, money and men to help America win independence … Continue reading

How to measure the success of your crowdfunding campaign

Question: how do we measure the success of our crowdfunding campaign? Answer: if you reach your target and acquire the funds you need to run the project you have success  Simples! As that annoying meerkat might say. Better Answer: even if the money you raise covers the fees and the rewards you have promised and … Continue reading

Visualising crowdfunding - rewards or perks and successful fundraising

How do the number of rewards or perks relate to the success of campaigns? IndieGoGo blog entry from November 3 2011 says that 88% of campaigns which exceed their funding goal offer at least three perks. The chart below shows the number of rewards offered by successful campaigns on its platform. 70% of successful campaigns offered … Continue reading

Visualising crowdfunding (1)

Infographics present complex data and information quickly and easily. This is a first of a series that show aspects of crowdfunding - with lessons we can learn for our own campaigns. No Small Change  shows Barack Obama’s election campaign when he “leveraged  the power of the American people through online Social Networks“. He is said to have … Continue reading

Crowdfunding for social business and non-profits

This blog promotes crowdfunding for investors and social businesses Crowd funding (sometimes called crowd financing or crowd sourced capital) describes the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money and other resources together, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organisations. Crowd funding occurs for … Continue reading