If you haven’t heard about Crowdfunding here is a little bit about what its all about:

Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising monetary contributions from a large number of people, typically via the Internet. You may have heard of KickStarter but there are lots of different sites, all of them offering a slightly different service.

Some of them allow you to offer rewards to those who make pledges, others don’t. Some allow you to actually offer equity in your company whilst others its all about donations of money. Some will allow supporters to pledge their time or donations other than money.

So, its important to consider the following before committing yourself to a campaign:

1. Are you trying to raise money, equity or other types of donations?
2. Are you going to offer rewards?
3. What fees will the site charge?
4. What happens if you don’t reach your target – some sites are all or nothing, others pass on whatever you raise?
5. Is it best to go for  a low target – some sites allow you to increase your target if you reach the first one, others use a milestone system?
6. How much support will you in running your campaign – some sites give great support, others leave it mainly to you?
7. Have you got video you can upload – video can double the money you raise!
8. How good are you at social media and networking – you need to really push the boat out on this?
9. Make sure you have everything planned down to the last detail, then double and triple check it before you go live.
10. Are you asking for pledges towards a general target or specific items (equipment, salary, training etc)?

So, as you can see there is a lot to think about. In terms of where to look for advice, well each site does a good job of explaining how it works so check out their FAQs and Guides in depth. Some of the organisations involved in the Third Sector (charity, voluntary bodies and social enterprises like Go4) have conducted research and also produced guides to help you choose and how to run your campaign. Its also woth checking out successful campaign to see what they did and also check the blogs on the various sites as users will share their experience.

Here are some places to start:

1. The Dynamics of Crowdfunding: An Exploratory Study – http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2088298
2. Kickstarter – granddaddy of them all! – http://kickstarter.com/
3. Believe.in – the one we ahev chosen for our first campaign.
4. Crowdfunding Guide for UK organisations – NESTA
5. Guide by Crowdfunder
6. Another guide from CrowdFundUK

So, watch this space for news of our first crowdfunding campaign and be sure to spread the word!