Crowdfunding goes from strength to strength. And for social community projects and worthy causes, crowdfunding provides new and exciting opportunities for fundraisers to exceed previous levels of expectations, perhaps by up to three-fold.
Here’s how it works. Like most other disruptive changes to established ways of doing things, it is based on the internet. Crowdfunding delivers an innovative way to generate an investment budget to finance a business start-up, expand an existing organisation, or achieve a worthy aim in the community. The crowdfunding process makes your funding requirement public on a dedicated website platform, and you need to drive a big enough crowd of people to it and convince a high enough proportion of them to give just a little bit each towards what you need.
There are four broad types of crowdfunding. For businesses it includes money on loan with pre-set repayment terms, or in exchange for some company equity. For social community projects or worthy causes there are direct appeals for donations (with or without reward incentives) that do not incur any responsibility of repayment.
Donations campaigns are often built around a donations-for-rewards model. Donors not only feel a rosy glow from supporting a cause they empathise with, they are also encouraged to give by the range of perks and incentives offered in recognition of their support. This reduces the net income a crowdfunding project generates by the amount it costs to source and distribute the perks. Though if the perks include merchandise material that promotes the cause or the project then they can deliver valuable longer-term visibility. Perks may also include reduced rates to buy products or use a facility or venue, encouraging a level of habit-forming patronage.
Here is what makes crowdfunding particularly effective for worthy causes. The money raised through donations campaigns tends to come in three roughly equal parts. The first third is donations from your closest contacts and you need to personally secure their support. In the past this may often have been the extent of the fundraising for a particular cause or project. However, crowdfunding now provides effective leverage to use this income as a base upon which to achieve even more, perhaps double the initial amount again. Do the personal selling in time to refine an effective pitch for your important crowdfunding video.
The donations from the key personal contacts should appear quickly in your online crowdfunding project, certainly in the first few days because they will inspire and encourage other donors to follow them. The next third of donations are likely to come from other contacts in your e-mail database and various social media networks who are not close enough for you to have reasonably approached on a personal basis. It is thus vital to have an organised e-mail database and sufficiently sized social media networks for this to be viable, and some prepared content to quickly distribute. You may want to consider an e-mail automation programme. Independent crowdfunding advice on several of these issues could be very worthwhile.
The average UK crowdfunding donation is around £35, and – again on average – one in twenty people who visit an online crowdfunding project will make a donation. Depending on your target amount you can start doing the sums to estimate the size of crowd you need to drive to your crowdfunding project.
And finally, there are many, many people out there who are open to contributing to good causes. Up to a final third of your income can come from people outside of your networks, people you have never been in touch with before, but who are encouraged by the quality of your project and reassured by the fact that so many people who do know you are prepared to contribute. It gives them confidence they are making the right decision. Traditional media coverage generated through PR and Twitter hashtagging can usefully extend awareness of your crowdfunding project beyond your known contacts. This needs to be put in hand perhaps months before your crowdfunding goes live. You can of course then add these new people to your database to maintain regular contact and develop a deeper relationship with them.
Clive Reffell established Comanche Communications & Marketing in 2014 to provide independent crowdfunding advice to SMEs. He brings a wide range of problem-solving experience from a 30-plus year career in results-focused marketing. His formal qualifications include post-graduate diplomas in direct and digital marketing from the IDM and business management from the Open University Business School.
W: www.comcomms.com. E: [email protected]. M: 07788 784373. T: @Cliveref