Crowdfund Cotswold has launched its latest funding round with a deadline of 26th April. Along with pledges from your local community, there is an opportunity to receive pledges of up to a combined £20,000 from Cotswold District Council towards your crowdfunding target. 

Spacehive are running a workshop to launch the round on Wednesday 1st March which you can sign up for here. Come along to find out more.
 

To get started, create your project on Spacehive and get your project verified. You will then submit your pitch to the two Crowdfund Cotswold funds via the Spacehive platform and launch your campaign.

To be considered by the council for a pledge, you should:

1. Launch your crowdfunding campaign on Spacehive by the fund deadline: 26th April

2. Showcase local support for your project in the form of backers.

Pitches to the fund will be considered typically 6 weeks after the fund deadline. If successful, you will receive a pledge towards your live crowdfunding campaign. The Spacehive team is on hand to share lots of advice on how to run a brilliant crowdfunding campaign.

Join the Spacehive team at our upcoming workshop on 1st March at 12:00 for more information (see News & Events page) and read the steps below to learn how to get involved.

1.    SHARE YOUR IDEA + ATTEND A WORKSHOP

Complete our Project Idea Form ​​​​as soon as possible to tell us about your idea and register for a workshop (see News & Events tab for more information).

2.    CREATE YOUR PROJECT ON SPACEHIVE

Create your project page on Spacehive which will match you to the fund name. You are encouraged to create your project early, to unlock support from the Spacehive team. 

3.    GET YOUR PROJECT VERIFIED

The project costs and necessary permissions will be checked by Spacehive's verifiers before you begin crowdfunding. Submit early to ensure you’re verified before the deadline. Verification takes an average of four days where project creators have the relevant documents to hand. 

Before you submit for verification, make sure that you have:

• Proof of permission (e.g. event license, council agreement, landowner consent). Read more about permissions.

• Evidence of costs (e.g. building work quotations, links to online shop listings)

• Relevant insurances, policies, or qualifications (e.g. organisation constitution, safeguarding policy, certifications)

• Evidence of any funds that you have received for this project that you would like to have shown on your campaign (e.g. grant agreement, scan of a cheque, bank statement). 

4.    LAUNCH YOUR CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN AND PITCH TO THE FUND BY 26TH APRIL 

Once verified, launch your crowdfunding campaign, no later than 26th April. Ensure you have submitted your fund pitch by the deadline too, to be considered for a pledge from the council.

Please note: the council will not be the first organisation to pledge to your project and will first want to see community support and backing, in the form of pledges from local people towards your campaign.

Start by getting lots of small pledges from the community to show local support for your project. This will help unlock bigger pledges.

Please note: a typical crowdfunding campaign should not exceed three months.

 5.    ASSESSMENT AND PLEDGE

The council will review all projects typically 6 weeks after the deadline and successful projects can expect to receive a pledge of up to a combined £20,000 (max 80% of target) during their live campaign. For example, a £10,000 campaign could get up to £8,000. 

6. HIT YOUR TARGET AND DELIVER YOUR PROJECT 

You need to hit your target in order to receive the funds you raise. Please allow up to three weeks to receive funds once your campaign ends. Once you deliver your project, you can update your backers by completing a colourful impact report on Spacehive. 

To learn more about crowdfunding on Spacehive, visit the Help Centre. 

For any additional questions, please contact Spacehive on support@spacehive.com.

Is my project eligible for Spacehive?

Projects need to be locally-rooted, tangible, and serve a community purpose.

If you have an idea for a project that can help your local area, then Spacehive is the place to raise funds for it.

It may be something simple and creative such as a street mural, or more ambitious such as repurposing a disused building for community use. 

It could also be for temporary projects, for example if the project is in response to COVID-19 and you are looking to purchase equipment to improve local digital services, set up local food production schemes, or fund emergency response packages for mutual aid groups. 

What's important is that your project is tangible. People who will back your campaign will want to see where their money has gone. 

While it's impossible to cater to all, your project should have local benefit and not just be for a select few to enjoy. Obviously the more people your project appeals to, the more chance you stand of running a successful crowdfunding campaign.

Projects must be in the UK, and can be led by any type of organisation or individual. Please note, being eligible to crowdfund on Spacehive does not necessarily mean your project is eligible for funds available on Spacehive - please check eligibility of the funds you're interested in pitching to. 

Looking for inspiration? Our project archive will give you a flavour of the types of projects that crowdfund with us.

How does the all-or-nothing crowdfunding model work?

You need to hit your target in order to receive the funds you raise. Otherwise you will not receive any.

Spacehive operates an all-or-nothing model, which means that if you don’t hit your target, backers are refunded and you receive no funds. This can seem daunting at first, however we believe that it is to the advantage of project creators.

• It helps you raise more money as backers know you have to hit your target. On platforms where this isn't mandated, there's no urgency and it's common to raise less than the target amount. 

• It’s less risk for everyone. If you need £5,000, it’s not much good having £1,000 and crowd of people expecting you to complete a £5,000 project.

• It encourages people to back you. They know their money will only go towards the project as described on your page, not a half-funded version of it.

• It works. 66% of Spacehive campaigns are successful, which is much higher than the crowdfunding industry standard.

Once the initial funding target has been reached, projects can continue to raise additional funds to make the project even bigger and better. If the project has overfunding enabled, details of how the extra funds will be spent are explained on the project page and backers can choose whether to keep pledging towards those cost items too. Find out more about overfunding here.

What are the fees? Is there a charge?

Anyone can set up a project page for free, and start crowdfunding. We add a 5% success fee to campaigns which is only payable if you reach your funding target.

Anyone can start using Spacehive and create a project for free. To ensure the continuing development and maintenance of our technology platform, the process of verifying projects, and the support that we provide, we apply a 5% success fee to projects* which hit their target with us. 

When you input your project costs, our system will still calculate this fee and it will appear as a cost item in your budget.

For example, if your project costs £100, we will add 5% +VAT to your target, which works out as £106. This will be your crowdfunding target. 

It is important to note that there are transaction fees for accepting electronic pledges which again we calculate for you once you've input your project costs. These are set by Stripe, the external payment provider that you will connect with when you create your project with us. Read our dedicated article on these to find out more. 

What advice do other project creators have for running a successful campaign?

Project creators who have been successful are a rich source of knowledge. Most advise being prepared to sell your idea, having a clear plan to deliver it, going the extra mile to woo big funders, and having a crowd before you crowdfund.

We went out and canvassed project creators who have run successful campaigns, asking them a simple question: what tips would you give to someone who wants to crowdfund a community project on Spacehive? Read their answers here. 

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Want inspiration? Take a look at all the successful projects on Spacehive here.

Through Crowdfund Cotswold, local projects have extra support from the Spacehive team to get ready to run a brilliant crowdfunding campaign. Get started by sharing your idea via this short form. 

To learn more about crowdfunding on Spacehive, visit the Help Centre. 

For any additional questions, please contact Spacehive on support@spacehive.com.

Crowdfund Cotswold gives residents with project ideas the ability to attract funding from their communities, the council, local businesses and foundations - all through one portal. The programme brings people across the district together through locally-led ideas that our communities want to help make happen. You can pledge as little as £2 towards a project you want to bring to life. 

Check out projects fundraising now as part of Crowdfund Cotswold here. To keep updated on new projects, upcoming events and funding opportunities, please contactsupport@spacehive.com or click the yellow 'Follow' star at the top right of the page.

Companies, foundations and public bodies interested in supporting projects alongside Cotswold District Council should also get in touch so we can help get you started.

#CrowdfundCotswold