A suitable crowdfunding project
Most people find it’s more fun to contribute to new benches in the park than to pay for the annual maintenance of the lanes. And when building a new school, it’s more fun to crowdfund for school fees for the children than for the electricity bill. Crowdfunding is much easier to do when you have a fun, tangible and appealing project that people want to give money to. And it’s important that you already have people involved with the project and that you have a team you can campaign with. Read more about the four properties that make your project suitable for crowdfunding.
1. Our initiative already has a community surrounding it
People will contribute faster to a project when they have a connection with the initiative, the organization or the initiator. So it’s important that people are already involved with the project and feel it’s important the project will be realized. Are you still alone? Then first find a group of active followers and ambassadors. It helps when the network already exists, for instance in a school, where pupils, teachers, parents and local residents already have a connection to the school. For campaigns involving projects abroad they can be people who are or were involved as volunteers or who feel the impact of the project is important.
2. The initiative is specific and urgent
What will you be doing specifically and why is it so important this project will start? Show what difference you make when you collect the target amount. People will be more inclined to contribute to your initiative when it’s specific and clear what you will be doing with the money you’ve collected. This way your contributors will sense that their contribution is really necessary to get the project started. So don’t collect €2,000 for your local soccer club or foundation, but select a specific goal that shows people instantly why you need their money.
3. The initiative is innovative and appealing
Next to being urgent and specific, you need a project that people gladly want to contribute to. You can crowdfund for something everybody wants, like new playground equipment in your neighborhood or a book with specific climate ideas. We see that crowdfunding is very suitable for innovative or first-time projects too.
4. You have a campaign team with time and enthusiasm
Crowdfunding involves more than posting a page on a platform or hanging up a poster. Crowdfunding is campaigning: making people excited, convincing them and taking them along, so they will want to commit to making your campaign successful. Do you like actively campaigning to make your initiative more widely known? Do you dare ask your neighbors, friends and family for help and to contribute to your campaign?
Also, crowdfunding is hard work; you’ll make lots of noise in different ways, to make people hear about your campaign. That’s why it’s important that you collect a group of people and make it a joint effort. Doing it together is more fun and easy than doing it alone; this way you can divide tasks and access a much larger network.
“It’s important to have a large team of workers, but if you have enthusiastic people in your group of initiators, then any project with a good story can succeed!” — Initiators of a flower bulb campaign
Grant funding takes a lot of time, most initiatives we’ve helped will agree on that. But the number of hours they spend on the campaign weekly, before and during the campaign, varies widely. From 2 to 5 hours per week per person for initiatives with a big campaign team and a strong network, to over 40 hours per week for an initiator who collected more than €22,000 on her own.
