I had chance to listen the webinar by one of the Atlas Corps fellow on Crowdfunding. I would like to share that knowledge through this blog.
Crowdfunding is a new opportunity to collaborate and get funding. This is the way to approach the crowd for funding on different project. You can reach out the crowd with your story and idea to fund your story. This is different from asking a specific organization/ bank to finance your idea. This is requesting the mass to finance your program.
Story is key component for crowdfunding campaign and it should be precise and persuasive to convince others to finance your idea. Currently we are in fast pace world and people don’t have time to read long stories or verifying the data. You can attract the crowd through visual presentation like great photo or video which could explain your idea. Video for crowdfunding should have three elements: explaining problem, solution and how money could help to solve the problem through this solution. Video should have the human element of building trust on your problem and solution. It should deliver message that people could trust to finance your idea.
After building the great story, reach out to the personal network to raise 30% before launching it for crowd. Approximately 20-30 % people fund the idea who don’t know you and fund you. Rest of the funding is come from the people or network u know.
You can categorize the target mass in three categories:
- Who have money
- Who have voice/influences/ social following
- Those people with who can link with first two people
As you launch your campaign, you have to keep the momentum to reach the target. You can add promise note to send pictures, thank you note, signed t shirts or any small gift to recognized their support. Lastly, keep updating your crowd about progress and status through sharing pictures or regular updates.
