NCVO’s Sustainable Funding project is running the challenge in partnership with Buzzbnk and is sponsored by CAN Impact. Ros Jenkins, from NCVO said, “So many organisations are looking to change how they raise money, especially those who have been reliant on grants. This challenge is a great way to generate learning and resources for charities while having lots of fun and raising money for some great causes.”

Kate Markey, Managing Director of CAN Invest said “Crowd-funding highlights an innovative route for start-up ventures to access alternative funds without relying on traditional grants. The projects put forward have identified opportunities to deliver real social value in their communities, enhancing local accountability and ownership. I look forward to seeing them flourish.”

One of the successful organisations is Horse Rangers. Based in Richmond they are crowdfunding for a new horse to work with children with complex disabilities. Supporters of their crowdfunding project could receive a packet of seeds, a lucky horse shoe or even a video of one of the horses saying thank you.

The Gateshead Citizen’s Advice Bureau are also taking part in the challenge in order to fund touch-screen self-help consoles which allow people to access information from Citizens Advice to solve their problems and get their lives back on track. Alison Dunn, CEO of Gateshead Citizen’s Advice Bureau said, “Last year cuts to funding forced us to decommission outreach work at several venues leaving these communities with no advice provision. The only way to maintain outreach services for these communities is to transform the way we do advice.  We think these self-help consoles are part of the solution and we see this challenge as a great way to start building our relationships with supporters and engaging with our communities in a new way”

Updates and learning from the challenge will be available via the NCVO website. The organisation that demonstrates the most learning and sharing during the challenge will be awarded with a £1000 prize by CAN Impact at the NCVO Sustainable Funding conference November 28, 2012.

For more information contact Chloe Stables in NCVO’s press office on 07714 243 942 or email chloe.stables@ncvo-vol.org.uk.

Notes to editors: 

The Crowdfunding Challenge 2012 is an NCVO project in partnership with Buzzbnk and supported by CAN Impact. Further support to participants is being provided by ShoNet and CrowdfundUK.

The ten participants are: Aston Mansfield (Newham, London), Same Sky (Brighton), Horse Rangers (Richmond), East Lancashire Women’s Centre (Lancashire), LATCH (Leeds), Mind the Gap (Bradford), Stay Up Late (East Sussex), Gateshead CAB (Gateshead), Grace and Flavour (Kent) and Newlyn Art Gallery (Cornwall).

Follow participants on Twitter #crowdfunding2012. Visit the NCVO site for more information on each of the participants: www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/crowdfunding2012

About NCVO:

The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) is the umbrella body for the voluntary sector in England, with sister councils in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.  With over 280,000 staff and over 13 million volunteers working for our members, we represent and support almost half the voluntary sector workforce.

www.ncvo-vol.org.uk

About Buzzbnk

Buzzbnk is an on-line crowd-funding platform bringing social ventures looking for start-up or growth capital together with like-minded people keen to participate in a new way of funding social change. Funds can be raised in a variety of ways, from offering fun and engaging benefits, in return for goods or services, or as a loan.

www.buzzbnk.org

About CAN Impact

CAN deploys a range of business support into social enterprises and including social impact reporting and consultancy. We work with the corporate and finance sectors to lever capital funds and strategic growth support into leading social enterprises.

www.can-online.org.uk/pages/e.-social-return-on-investment-sroi.html

In early May, following the second successful round of fundraising through the Buzzbnk platform, the purchase order was placed for two 750kW wind turbines, and very soon after, the ground was broken at the site in Tamil Nadu. By the time Wendy Stephenson (TCW CEO) and Denis Burn (Director) made a visit to the site in mid-May, they were very pleased to be able to see (and kick) the newly laid foundations.

Wendy and Denis also met some of the local community, including land owners, who greeted them with enthusiasm, inviting them into their homes, schools and workplaces. The local community had already been contacted by TCW’s Indian colleagues who had initiated conversations about the kind of organisation TCW is. They also explained that TCW would like to work with the community to identify how some of the revenue from the wind turbines can be used to support local social and environmental projects.

TCW are very pleased to report that the physical work on the wind turbines is now finished and they are now just finalising the signing off with the grid and other associated administration, and the wind turbines will start turning and earning by the end of August!

A great story of Green Energy powered by Crowdfunding for Social Good.

About The Converging World

The Converging World is a UK-based charity working to relieve poverty and distress and to promote sustainable development. All income is invested directly into renewable energy projects to create long term funding for vital health, education and environmental projects, which help to break the poverty cycle in the UK and around the world.

Written by: Theresa Burton, CEO & Co-founder Buzzbnk

Crowdfunding is a fairly new and very exciting way to raise money for your project or organisation. It is, in the words of our co-founder Michael Norton, “not just giving, it’s co-venturing”. In other words, this is a new way to connect with backers and donors, a two-way process that allows them to feel invested in your project and for you to forge strong links with your community.

If you have a start-up business or a new project within a growing organisation, crowdfunding is a great means of remaining in control while seeking out early-phase financial backing. You set the timeframe, you set the budget, you set the milestones en route to your end goal. If you can make a convincing case for your project, if you have appetising rewards or returns for your backers and if you are proactive while running the campaign, then you have a really good chance of raising the money you need to get your new venture off the ground.

Crowdfunding is most successful when an organisation is energetic about harnessing its online presence and finding innovative ways of spreading the word about its crowdfunding project.   It’s a common misunderstanding that crowdfunding platforms have a ready-made group of backers who are all longing to throw down their money at the next great idea (although at Buzzbnk we would like to change that and build a community of repeat backers over time).

Saying that, if you are able to attract your community to your crowdfunding page, you will be more than likely to convert them to becoming backers. There’s a theory that if you have at least 10 or 12 ‘project supporters’ on your page then people will feel more encouraged to join in with the crowd. One tip we always give to new Buzzbnk crowdfunders is to encourage friends and family to support as soon as the project goes live, so that by the time you send the information out to your wider community, there’s already a good number of people on board.

At Buzzbnk the projects generally fall into two categories: the tortoise and the hare. They will attract support at massively different rates, but both stand a good chance of winning. What counts is commitment to keeping the crowdfunding project active – obviously having a deadline is helpful, but we always advise projects to think about how much reach they have and how much time they have given themselves to raise their target. For example, raising  £10,000 in 90 days means raising an average of  £111 per day – which is far above what most can achieve. On average, projects have raised  £13/day. That doesn’t mean we don’t see exceptions; our best donation based project raised  £150/day.   But you should beware talking in terms of averages: a large part of the total will be raised in those final few days as the clock ticks down.

Buzzbnk was one of the first crowdfunding platforms to go live in the UK. It’s unique in that it specifically supports projects and organisations that have a ‘more-than-profit’ motive, be they social enterprises, cooperatives or charities. It is also unique because it is the only UK crowdfunding platform that can provide loans as well as straightforward donations. Our most recent loan-based crowdfunding project raised over  £110,000 as a five year loan at a 6% annual interest rate. Another project has raised over  £45,000 as a five year loan at 5% annual interest.

But, you ask – do you not need to be regulated by the Financial Services Authority in the UK? The laws regarding financial services and promotion are complex. Buzzbnk, like other organisations involved in “peer-to-peer lending”, spent considerable time and investment to work with lawyers specialised in this area of regulation. The conclusion we reached, also in consultation with the FSA General Counsel, is that Buzzbnk does not need to be regulated. The short reason is that Buzzbnk facilitates bilateral unsecured lending – but there are many conditions on how this must be executed.

But what about the future of Crowd-funding? Will there be an easier way to allow organisations to raise any type of finance from the public without the cost and burden required now by the Financial Promotions Act?

There are moves afoot in both the US and UK. In the US, there are in fact three bills in front of congress proposing different crowdfunding exemptions. And in the UK, there is a government consultation on alternative finance, which also covers crowdfunding.

But let’s go to first principles – which are to protect the consumer from investing in something which they cannot afford to lose all or part of the funds and for which they understand the nature of the risk they are taking.

To address this, most crowd-funding exemption proposals limit the maximum exposure a person could invest on crowdfunding platforms and second to limit the maximum an organisation can raise. For example, one of the US bills proposes a maximum of $500 or 1-2% of individual income, depending on income, plus a $2,000 cap on people’s total annual investment in CF-exempt securities. Each organisation can have total offerings at $1m with audited financials and $500K without.   And appropriately, the bill also requires the hosting crowdfunding platform to be fully vetted and registered.

At Buzzbnk we support such a development in the UK. The devil will be in the detail – to get the balance right between consumer protection and reducing the cost and burden of raising smaller amounts of finance. However, if we can get it right, and reduce the current confusion around regulatory status, crowdfunding could really unlock the potential of organisations to raise finance not just from the “usual suspects” (e.g. banks, high net worth) but directly from the public and those that support what they are doing.

For immediate release: February 15 2012

Buzzbnk wins one of 15 investments from NESTA and the Cabinet Office

Buzzbnk, an online crowd-funding platform supporting charities and social enterprises, has been awarded a £50,000 investment from the £10million Innovation in Giving Fund. Created by the Cabinet Office and NESTA, the fund aims to find and back innovative ideas for increasing volunteering and charitable giving.

The Innovation in Giving Fund was launched in September 2011 by Nick Hurd, Minister for Civil Society as part of a £34million package to increase levels of social action. It is managed by NESTA, the UK’s innovation agency. 450 applications for funding were received and 62 were shortlisted to pitch their ideas to a selection panel between December 2011 and March 2012. Buzzbnk was one of the first ten to be selected by the panel.

“We are very excited to be part of a group of organisations seeking to bring a step change in how people support social and environmental progress in the UK,” says Theresa Burton, CEO and Co-founder of Buzzbnk.

“Buzzbnk brings a new approach to fundraising. Rather than just raising money, it creates a sense of co-venturing, strengthening the relationship between the supporter and the venture,” says Michael Norton, OBE, Chairman and Co-founder. “They share the journey and they share the benefits. It’s about more complex relationships with long term value: building engagement and reciprocity.”

With NESTA’s support, Buzzbnk will be taking the next step to go mobile— strengthening the website for use on a wide range of mobile phones and tablets as well as building apps to support the way people interact, communicate and give today. The funds will also be used to strengthen the social media integration – an increasingly important way in which people engage and share.

The investment from NESTA comes just after Buzzbnk has celebrated its first anniversary. During the last 12 months it has helped 26 projects raise over £248,000 for socially- and environmentally-minded projects. There has been a huge array of campaigns: from disadvantaged young people launching their own micro social enterprises, through to established organisations raising sizeable loans for international programmes.

—Ends—

Notes for Editors

Photographs of successful projects and project leaders, and screen shots of website and mobile app available on request.

Buzzbnk is an on-line crowd-funding platform that brings social ventures looking for start-up or growth capital together with like minded people keen to fund with small amounts of money. Social enterprises or charities can raise funding for a wide range of projects in a variety of ways, from offering fun and engaging benefits, in return for goods or services, or as a loan. It’s a whole new way to do good.

Buzzbnk is a social enterprise owned 63% by leading charities and foundations in the UK and has a social purpose mandate to support the social enterprise, social investment and charitable sector.

Buzzbnk is a registered trademark of SellAVenture LLP, OC351199 16 Lincoln’s Inn Fields London WC2A 3ED, UNITED KINGDOM

Theresa Burton,CEO and Co-Founder: theresa@buzzbnk.org, office: +44 20 7396 3517

http://www.buzzbnk.org

It’s been an epic twelve months. We had gather much information about crowdfunding before we started, and we’ve garnered a whole swathe of new insight since. Over the coming months, we’ll be sharing with the crowdfunding community many of the tips and tricks we’ve learned along the way.

But right now we want to cast back to last year, and to reflect on the achievements of our inaugural cohort of people and projects.

It was on April 10, 2011 that we celebrated our first ever successful campaign who crowd-funded £4,108 to publish a book on timebanking, called “Your Money or Your Life. Or Both.”. The first Time Bank in the UK was opened in 1998. Since then over 250 Time Banks have been launched and thousands of people have discovered that their lives can be richer, safer and far happier if they come together and get back to some ‘give and take’. Through timebanking they have all discovered a way to co-operate, to change their worlds for the better and to share and care for each other – regardless of the size of their bank balances.

Martin Simon, CEO of Timebanking UK, said, “I decided to use crowd-funding through Buzzbnk and self-publish as I am convinced that there will be plenty of people who would be interested in all the great things that have been happening and who would be happy to invest in the book and then enjoy reading it.”

You can watch a video about the findings that was filmed at the RSA:

Our first successful international project was ColaLife’s AidPods raising £3,055 on April 28, 2011.

“Some ideas are so simple! ColaLife is one,” explained founders Simon and Jane Berry. “Getting vital medicines to rural health clinics healthworkers or small shops can be a huge problem when there are no roads and no dependable transport. So why not use the Coca Cola distribution system… as you can buy a Coke almost anywhere?”

ColaLife had already designed AidPods to fit between the rows of bottles in a crate which carry simple medicines out to rural areas. Through Buzzbnk they were able to raise funds to pilot the idea and make it work.

What we at Buzzbnk find particularly exciting is the range of projects that come through our door. We are as equally inspired by small projects as we are by big ones. Through a partnership with the Young Foundation, we have been helping young UpRisers raise up to £1,000 for their own campaigns. We have helped raised £615 for a pop-up tea room on Human Rights. And at the other end of the scale, we have organisations such as The Converging World, who raised £111,000 towards a new wind turbine as a 5 year loan.

And to celebrate our first anniversary we are offering all projects that go live this month a 20% discount off our commission and registration fee. How’s that for spreading the good even further? If you’re interested in raising seed-funding, fill in our form and we’ll take it from there. Or contact us at hello@buzzbnk.org.

Eugenie Teasley, founder of Spark+Mettle, shares her tips on crowd-funding for first timers, and reflects on the benefits (but the struggle) of building a community of people around a cause.

Crowd-funding is the easy option, right?

No, but it is an exciting one. Any sort of fundraising is hard, especially now. Whether or not you are at the coal-face of the charity or social enterprise world, there are often times that you need to raise some money. Perhaps for an event you’re doing, a new project you want to get rolling, or—as was the case for me—trying to start up an organisation. From zero.

If you’ve raised money before you’ll know all too well that it is tough. Really, really tough. And if you’ve been asked to donate money (as I’m guessing almost all of us have), then you’ll know that it can be a little tiresome. I’m not sure if they exist in every country around the world, but here in the UK on pretty much every high street we are often approached by people asking us to sign up to be a regular donor for a charity. Some call these people “chuggers” (a shortening of the not-very-kindly phrase “charity muggers”).

But even if you don’t have to try to dodge chuggers as you set out to buy groceries, you may have been approached by all sorts of people and have been asked to give money. Perhaps you have been asked to donate to someone who’s running a marathon, or to attend a fundraising dinner (with an auction). Perhaps you’ve had to figure out how, politely, to turn them down. I know that I suffer from donor fatigue, so I’m sure that others do too.

So the issue I’ve been grappling with recently is this: how do I ask people for money? And, more importantly, how do I make sure that they want to give? And on top of ALL that, how do I get them to become part of our community rather than arms-length donors?

I knew that I didn’t want to go down the traditional routes of fundraising. I realised that if I was bored at the thought of them, then I probably wouldn’t pitch my idea across particularly convincingly. After living in the States for a couple of years, I was well-versed with the idea of crowd-funding. Over there, great websites like www.kickstarter.com have been hugely successful at getting lots of people to invest small amounts into innovative, creative ventures. I liked the idea of it. It feels grassroots-y. And that ties in well with the morals and values of my organisation.

I also learned about Kiva (www.kiva.org) — an organisation that adopts the microfinancing approach (originally spearheaded by Yunus at Grameen Bank) and applies it to the web. It gets lenders in developed countries to invest small sums (say $10) in small businesses in the developing world. It has had great success and spawned many similar sites across the world.

You can build a movement through crowd-funding, right?

Right! If you have a pre-established community then crowd-funding is a great way to get them re-energised with your cause. But crowd-funding also works if you want to build from scratch a network of people who want to do more than merely donate to your cause and if you are able to offer incentives or rewards for their pledge. It is not an easy option. Especially if you’re starting with a tiny/non-existent community, when it is hardest to get traction. For me the most enticing thing about crowd-funding was the idea of building a movement: a community of people championing the cause. But as Derek Sivers points out so brilliantly in this video, that is no mean feat…

All crowd-funding platforms are the same, right?

Not exactly. In the couple of years since I moved back from the States, crowd-funding has gone from being unheard of to being almost omnipresent. There are now so many platforms up and running in the UK, and it is sometimes hard to differentiate between all the crowd-funding sites that exist.

For me the choice was pretty simple: as a non-profit, I wanted to find a platform that would not just support and uphold Spark+Mettle’s charitable aims, but also one that contributed to the third sector itself.  I found it really appealing that Buzzbnk was a social enterprise itself, over 60% owned by charities, and thus gives back to the third sector. For similar reasons to choosing a wind-powered website hosting provider, I went for Buzzbnk: I felt reassured about my sources.

Some key tips from a first-timer

Even with carefully-crafted rewards, it was hard to incentivise people. In fact, I had to resort to being far more resourceful. I quickly whizzed up a little animation that took many of my nights (and days) and tried to explain not only what Spark+Mettle is, but also why we were trying to fundraise the way that we were. I was secretly—well, openly—hoping would go viral. Sort of…

The key things I learned that will help me become a more effective (crowd)fundraiser are:

1. Make it exciting and unusual. You need a hook. You may have a deep-seated passion for your cause and belief in the work that you are trying to do, but others probably don’t. At least, not initially. So go and get them hooked by offering benefits or rewards something new, something desirable, something fun. Crowd-funding has really locked into this idea. And on Buzzbnk you can now also crowd-fund loans, which means your backers can not just get their benefits, but could also get their cash back too. Pretty enticing.
2. Allow for moments of lightheartedness. Pepper all the serious things you are trying to do with some humour.
3. Make an ask. Be brazen, be bold, be unapologetic. Don’t offer an easy way out, offer something in return. The amount most commonly donated is $30 on www.kickstarter.com. People tend not to go for the smallest amounts, and most of the pledges for our campaign were at the £25 mark—so make that one particularly covetable.
4. Make it easy for other people to spread the word. For crowd-funding, getting people to get other people onto your project is key. So provide them with resources that they will be excited to share. Get posting, tweeting, emailing—the lot.
5. Be careful not to over-ask. If you try to plug your venture every time you meet people or go online, people will tune out. Talk about other things, engage in other conversations, and then bring up your project if it is relevant.
6. Get others in on it too, right from the start. It’s estimated that in order to attract “cold” donors (in other words people who don’t know you personally) to donate via crowdfunding, there need to be at least 20 people listed as supporters. So before you go live with your campaign, rally your buddies (and your folks) behind you and get them to pledge as soon as the light turns green. Encourage them to reach out to their own networks. The success of crowdfunding is right there in its name: it’s about raising a crowd. And if you can start off with a small one already in the bag, then you’re doing well.

Building a movement is no easy thing. But once you’ve got things rolling, and you’ve created a community who are invested in what you do: there’s no better way to make your work succeed and be sustainable.

To crowd-fund for either donations or loans through Buzzbnk, visit www.buzzbnk.org

Crowdfunding uses the internet to raise money. However it is more than just fundraising, as it:

• Seeks to raise funds to make something very specific happen.

• Is all or nothing. If the target is not achieved within the stated time limit, then the venture gets nothing. This is because the task is to raise what is needed to get something done.

• Uses social networking tools to extend contacts from your own to those of your supporters, taking fundraising to the second degree.

• Assembles a crowd of supporters and encourages them to share the journey with the venture, providing an input of ideas, experience, contacts and energy. Supporters are urged to Give More, Find More and Do More.

• Provides attractive returns to supporters as an encouragement to giving support, but also to strengthen their understanding and commitment of the issues being addressed. There is a range of returns depending on the amount given.

Buzzbnk is one of a new generation of crowdfunding platforms and it aims to mobilise funds specifically for social ventures and enterprises. It has these special features:

• Ventures can raise loan finance as well as donations. For charities and social enterprises which are creating a stream of income from their work, a loan may often be more appropriate.

• Returns can be given in cash as well as in “engaging rewards” (product, opportunities, attendance at events, etc.). Cash returns can include a fixed rate of interest or a pre-determined share of future revenues. This offers a chance for supporters to invest rather than simply donate and to share in the success of the venture.

Why crowdfunding is relevant now:

• It is an enterprising solution to raising funds.

• It may be more appropriate for social enterprises, bringing a business mindset to resourcing and managing the social enterprise and building sustainable solutions.

• It brings a new approach. Rather than just taking the money, it creates a sense of co-venturing. The reciprocal obligation is a more complex relationship than just the traditional donor-beneficiary, and can be of great value in the longer term.

• It enables communities to mobilise support for the things they want to see happen, as investors in their own future. If they can raise some of the money for themselves, it makes them more fundable or more investible by others.

• It has the potential to mobilise new money at a time when traditional support is becoming less easily available.

• The energy and commitment that communities and social entrepreneurs can mobilise to assemble a crowd of supporters can be a good predicator of their eventual success.

Michael Norton, OBE, Director of CIVA, co-founder UnLtd, Chairman and Co-founder Buzzbnk

Our appeal has reached its target. We raised the princely sum of £5,014.25, just exceeding our £5,000 target. It would have been a bit more, as I was planning a last ditch campaign to a selection of my email address book. But on Friday 29th July I was laid low with a severe cold; and by Monday 1st August it was too late, as that was the date the appeal closed. Anyway, a big thank you to all those who supported me; and a sigh of relief from those I was unable to contact!

This is our progress:

The manuscript has been completed, and is with my good friend Justin Nurse being designed. We are still discussing the layout. If you want to see the draft design, please let me know. Once the design has been agreed, it will be a simple job to lay out the text page by page.

The title is now CLICK2Change: a better world at your fingertips. This reflects that many people no longer use a mouse to search the internet. Thanks to those who helped me find the new title.

I am intending to publish the book in three ways:

• Electronically on LuLu www.lulu.com. This will have the advantage of being available anywhere in the world, and with the URLs being clickable.

• In hard copy using print on demand, which can be ordered from anywhere in the world, again on LuLu.

• Printing 1,000 copies in the UK, which I will distribute. Storage has been agreed with the Big Issue.

Now I have decided how I am going to publish it, I will talk to Turnaround Distribution to see if they will handle UK bookshop distribution for me. I think realistically early-December would be my preferred publication date, as I am planning to be abroad for a good part of November.

I am entering into a partnership with The Big Issue. This will involve sharing the copyright with them, but in return, getting free ads from time to time in the magazine, and being featured on a regular basis in the new e-magazine they are producing. We are also working with them to find ways in which (a) their vendors can give copies (in the UK) to their favourite customers (provided free to them by us), and (b) working with the vendors to get (some of) them to take small actions for a better world. The Big Issue and us both feel this is a good idea, so we now have to get it agreed and implemented through their structure.

If you have any good ideas for promoting or distributing the book, let me know. If you want to order multiple copies as Christmas presents at the special price of £5 per copy, contact me at norton (at) civa.org.uk

Michael Norton

Director, CIVA (Centre for Innovation in Voluntary Action)  and Author of 365 Ways to Change the World

Tip: Already have an account with Buzzbnk? You can connect this to your Facebook account by signing in to Buzzbnk with your Buzzbnk account details, go to your “My Account” page and press the button “Connect with Facebook”.  Easy! Next time you want to sign in to Buzzbnk simply press the Facebook button.

We hope these and other upcoming enhancements will continue to make Buzzbnk the place to discover and support interesting and inspiring social ventures!

W

CLiC are a newly launched charity, and their purpose is to facilitate the reuse of donated furniture and electrical items at affordable prices whilst innovating in many different ways to create supported employment and volunteer opportunities for members of the local community, those who need support and people wanting to give something back.

They’re fundraising on Buzzbnk to support the opening of two new shops in Winsford selling second hand furniture and electrical items, as well as providing further valuable employment and volunteering opportunities.

As CLiC describes it, they do the ‘win-win thing’ by saving furniture from landfill, helping low income families turn a house into a home, and offering work, volunteer and disability placements. They already have one shop in Northwich, and have provided over 2,000 low income households with furniture, diverted 415 tonnes of furniture away from landfill, provided over 10,000 hours of work placements for the long term unemployed, and provided 6,000 supported voluntary hours  for those with physical and learning disabilities for which they earned a Cheshire-wide award.

Now they want to expand to enable their communities to access services more easily and to offer even more training and placement opportunities. They need £1,000 to market, promote and launch their new shop, and change even more lives in Cheshire! Find out more and make your pledge at www.buzzbnk.org/clic.