What is Crowdfunding?
The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States Competitive Business Unit (OECS-CBU) in collaboration with the Anguilla Community College held Crowdfunding training for small businesses, students and entrepreneurs on March 14th and 15th, 2016. The workshops were geared towards empowering small business owners to raise funds through crowdfunding for various business projects.
The OECS-CBU partnered with VisionFunder to carry out the initiative. Ms. Joyanne Headly of VisionFunder said “We believe that crowd funding is important in helping small business and entrepreneurs leverage resources in order to advance their programming.”
What is Crowdfunding?
Crowdfunding is by definition, “the practice of funding a project or venture by raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet.”
Who can engage in Crowdfunding?
Any individual or business with a worthwhile idea, project or campaign can engage in crowd funding.
Which platforms can you use?
VisionFunder is a relatively new platform geared towards the Caribbean region. Other crowdfunding and fundraising platforms include Gofundme and Kickstarter.
Where does the money come from?
The general public, that is, anyone in your community or around the world who is interested in your project or in the ‘rewards’ that you are offering can give funds towards your project.
How does it work?
It is important to be clear about the campaign or project for which you wish to raise funds. When developing your campaign ensure that you have a powerful reason/purpose behind your idea, exciting and unique rewards, and an eye-catching display.
Each campaign has a set amount of money identified to be raised (goal) and a fixed number of days or weeks to raise the funds. Once the project is launched, each day will be counted down and the money raised will be tallied up for visitors to follow its success
There are different stages you should go through. These include the pre-launch stage where you speak to family, friends, media and influencers and get them onboard with your project, the plan and research stage where you look at what other persons have done who have similar projects to your project, the building stage where you develop your campaign page and the execution stage where you launch your project and continue to engage in efforts to ensure it is a success.
A video will play a huge role in the success of your crowd funding campaign so ensure that you work with someone who is knowledgeable about making vides to ensure that it is compelling enough that persons will watch the full video.
Determine different levels of rewards that you can offer to persons who donate towards your campaign.
Prior, during and after the launch of your campaign, utilize social media, create email distribution lists and contact local media. These are all necessary steps to take if you are serious about achieving your goal. Ensure that you develop a compelling reason for persons to support your project and give regular updates.
It is important to get your family and friends on board with supporting your project. Ensure as soon as you launch they login to pledge funds so that your campaign can gather momentum online. Once this happens other persons will start to contribute to your project.
You much reach you goal amount to receive the money pledged.
Why would someone you do not know sponsor your project?
1. They connect to the greater purpose of the campaign
2. They connect to a physical aspect of the campaign like the rewards
3. They connect to the creative display of the campaign’s presentation
Why should you consider crowdfunding?
Crowdfunding is becoming increasingly popular as a way to get passion projects funded. In a tough economy it is an effective way to raise necessary funds.
Tanya Prive in an article on Forbes.com summed it up ‘crowdfunding is a great asset to businesses and entrepreneurs, generating much needed revenue and increasing the customer base, all the while aiding our country’s economy.’
