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About Crowd Funding

Posting #2 in a series on Resource Development
See # 1, Five Elements of Strategic Resource Development

First, a definition from the Oxford Dictionary: Crowdfunding (a form of crowdsourcing) is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising monetary contributions from a large number of people, today often performed via Internet-mediated registries, but the concept can also be executed through mail-order subscriptions, benefit events, and other methods. i

Wikipedia adds this: Crowdfunding is a form of alternative finance, which has emerged outside of the traditional financial system. ii

This latter definition is sometimes called “Equity Crowd Funding” and investors receive equity in the business or venture they are contributing to. This posting is not about this type of Crowd Funding. Rather I am writing about the most common type of Crowd Funding today which allows anyone to donate their money to anything that gets posted on an Internet-based Crowd Funding website. Recipients of funding can be individuals in need, informal groups, performance artists, individual schools, clubs, inventors, product developers, techno- projects, as well as conventional charities and businesses.

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Three Key Components of Effective Donor Communication

When you work in the non-profit sector, the need for funding is always top of mind. Maybe you have an ambitious plan to grow your mission and impact. Perhaps you’re feeling the pinch of looming cutbacks to current funding. Inevitably, you’re going to have to make the case for financial support to a new potential donor.

It’s worthwhile knowing a few techniques of persuasive writing that are common in donor communications. They will strengthen your case by making it more human, more engaging, and more aligned with the donor’s perspective. Keep these tips in mind when you sit down to write:

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Getting the Grant

These blog posts originally appeared on Anne Morais' website www.annemorais.com and are re-posted here with permission.

Getting the Grant: Introduction

You are an incredible organization with effective programs, great staff, super-human volunteers and you serve a community in need – all you need is a grant!

But before filling in that funding application due in a week, you need to take a small step back and first determine if a grant is the best source of revenue to support your program. If you determine that grants are appropriate, then you need to ask yourself if you are grant-ready?

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Creative Resource Development: Best Practice Recommendations for Local Initiatives

Creative Resource Development: Best Practice Recommendations for Local Initiatives, as presented by Shakira Miracle, Coordinator at Vibrant Abbotsford, during VC Canada's City Convenor Call, September 7, 2016. Learn more about the Vibrant Abbotsford poverty reduction collaboration and their projects by visiting: http://vibrantabbotsford.ca.

1. Assess your team (stakeholders): resources are often right outside of your doorstep, but you need to allow yourself the space to step back to assess the field before you dive-in. One of the common challenges of our work is finding undesignated funds. Think outside the box about who your stakeholders are and what they want. For example: Read More

Five Elements of Strategic Resource Development

It’s tough out there for non-profits and social causes when it comes to raising money, especially money for core operations and services. All of the seed grants, innovation grants, or target specific project grants are fine and dandy, but the growth in sustainable funding is not growing, is it? Impact Investing, Social Enterprise, and Crowd Funding are among the more recent methods of financing social good, though the extent of their reach and utility by the sector overall are emerging, not yet clearly understood.

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What We Learned From Talking Evaluation to Funders

In recent months, we’ve been talking with funders (including private foundations, public foundations and funders, government, and corporate funders) about evaluation. We’ve learned that, by and large, they are very interested in evaluation and see it as an important tool for learning and action. They understand the challenges that nonprofits face around evaluation and they acknowledge that some of these challenges arise out of their own requirements and expectations. Like nonprofits, funders we spoke with in Ontario see the need for a better approach to nonprofit evaluation with more focus on collaboration, learning, and action. Many are already taking steps to achieve this, but most also acknowledge that they still have much to learn. During our conversations, we gained insight into the obstacles that funders must overcome in order to change their practices. Understanding these challenges may be one of the keys to building an evaluation strategy that is truly sector driven and action focused. That is the focus of this blog.

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