As part of this programme there are two funding rounds a year in the Spring and Autumn. The council has three funds it uses to pledge to campaigns including the Create Church Street fund, the Smart City Fund and the Westmintser Community Enterprise Fund. 

The next deadline to get involved is the 14th of Sept. In preparation, we will be holding a free workshop at 11am on the 4th of August which we invite you to attend.

For free registeration click here. 

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In preparation for the next round, we advise you to start planning your project sooner rather than later. Read the information below and watch this short video from a previous project creator to hear about their experience. 

Funding available - As part of this programme there will be various funds available from the council to support your campaign, depending on the nature of your project. You must follow the process below to be eligible for a pledge.  

Read below to understand how it works and how to get involved.

1.    EXPRESSION OF INTEREST

Complete our expression of interest form at your earliest convenience to inform us of your project idea and knowledge of crowdfunding. A member of the team will be in touch to provide you with the necessary information and support you may need to help get your project started. 

2.    PROJECT PAGE AND PITCH

Create your online project page where your project will be matched to relevant local funds including the Create Church Street fund and the Westmintser Community Enterprise Fund (not all projects will be matched to all funds as the nature of each project may differ significantly). When pitching to funds, you will ask you some additional questions about your project. You need to have pitched by the 14th of Sept in order to be part of the Spring funding round. 

3.    VERIFICATION

The project costs and necessary permissions will be checked and verified. This involves checking quotes for all the major items and if you have landowner permission for your project. 

4.    CROWDFUNDING

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

5.    PLEDGE

Westminster Council will review all project campaigns and successful projects can expect to receive a pledge in mid Nov.

6. HIT YOUR TARGET AND DELIVER YOUR PROJECT

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

Church Street Fund

The Create Church Street fund is a £150,000 fund designed to support creative campaigns within the Church Street area. Organisations and individuals (aged 16 years +) eligible for a pledge. Organisations can receive up to £8,000 and/or 80% of their overall costs and individuals (aged 16 years +) can receive up to £4,000 and/or 80% of their overall costs.

Overview

The Church Street Ward is at the very heart of Westminster and has a diverse population with a strong sense of community. It boasts a theatre, galleries, an antiques quarter, a whole range of community groups and organisations, a secondary school, two primary schools and City of Westminster College close by. Create Church Street was devised to benefit the community in light of the upcoming neighbourhood renewal. Westminster City Council recognises the intrinsic impacts which creativity can bring together individuals and their communities, as well as the benefits such experiences can have at a time of change. Create Church Street offers the opportunity to protect and enhance the existing arts, cultural and creative activity going on in the Ward, and encourage more people to engage with arts, creativity and environmental projects and benefit from them.

Types of projects we can fund

We are interested in funding creative and environmental projects that benefit the residents of the Church Street Ward and Paddington Green estate. Some examples of the types of projects that could be delivered are: craft, sewing, establishing an edible garden, recycle and reuse projects, story writing, storytelling, audio-visual artworks, art, drawing, painting, digital technology, portraiture, literature, drama, film-making, publishing, video, pantomime, spoken word, photography, puppetry, dance, fashion, textiles, jewellery making, music, sculpture, printmaking, pottery, ceramics, graphic design, collage, calligraphy, stained glass, animation, gardening, cookery, floristry, hair and makeup, graffiti, interior design, murals.

Outcomes - the impact your project should have

Create Church Street is looking to promote community cohesion, reduce social exclusion and isolation, build a sense of belonging to the area, encourage greater local engagement with art or culture and make Church Street Ward a hub of creativity in Westminster. Westminster City Council’s vision is to create a great place where people want to live and where communities will thrive.

Please note - not all projects will be matched to all funds as the nature of each project may differ significantly and the funds are designed to support different types of projects in different parts of the borough. 

Smart City Fund

The Westminster Smart City Fund is a £50,000 capital fund designed to support Smart based projects within the borough of Westminster. The fund will be available as part of Crowdfund Westminster, a crowdfunding programme run by Westminster Council.

Community groups, voluntary groups, businesses, individuals and students are all encouraged to submit projects.

Projects run by constituted groups and organisations can receive pledges of up to £5,000 up to 50% of the campaign target. Projects run by individuals and non-constituted groups able to receive up to £2,500 up to 50% of the campaign target.

In cases where multiple funds associated with the programme are interested in pledging to the same project, the maximum amount which can be pledged is 70% of the campaign target. 

Overview

Smart City programme emerged from a recognition that the challenges and opportunities facing our residents, visitors and workers in the City could be more effectively addressed using innovation, technology, and partnerships. The ambition of the programme is to take an inclusive, participatory and problem-led approach to delivering quality services and world-leading experiences for all those we serve. Working and engaging with the community in order to empower them to assist with this is an important facet of the Smart City Team. Under Smart City we have 4 different themes: –

• Clean Tech, which focuses on environment and sustainability and looks at ways technology can provide a greener city;
• Empowering People, which focuses on using technology to ensure residents can live independently for longer and also takes a central role in engaging with our community to ensure the Smart journey is inclusive and enables all;
• Extraordinary Experiences, which focuses on championing our communities and the City’s unique cultural offer, as well as ensuring interactions with our council services enable those we serve and are accessed with ease;
• Innovative Ecosystem, which focuses on how our City, businesses and communities can thrive by championing creativity and innovation in all sectors that share values and objectives, as well as enabled innovation to thrive within the council.

Types of projects we can fund

We are interested in funding Smart projects that align to any of the four themes above. Whether that be a way to make the city more sustainable, to provide a more inclusive city for all who work, live and play here, finding a way to showcase the diverse heritage of the city or enabling businesses to thrive.

Projects must have a broad benefit to the wider community. Projects which are too commercially focused are not a good fit.

Outcomes – the impact your project should have

The Smart City fund will support projects that promote the four themes of Clean Tech, Empowering People, Extraordinary Experiences or Innovative Ecosystem. Projects should provide a benefit to the community with a focus on using technology and data to achieve this. The fund is borough wide and will support projects that are innovative and find solutions that impact on our community.

* Please note – there are three funds associated with the Crowdfund Westminster programme.

• Not all projects will be matched to all funds as the nature of each project may differ significantly and the funds are designed to support different types of projects in different parts of the borough.
• In cases where multiple funds associated with the programme are interested in pledging to the same project, the maximum amount which can be pledged accumulatively is 70% of campaign target. 

The Westminster Community Enterprise Fund is a £100,000 capital fund designed to support enterprising campaigns within the borough of Westminster.

Community groups, social enterprises, voluntary organisations and individuals who have an idea to support business and enterprise in their community are encouraged to submit projects. Projects can receive pledges of up to £15,000 and/or 50% of the overall costs. The pledge can only go towards capital elements of the project. 

Overview

Our ambition is for Westminster to be the best place in the UK to locate, start or grow a business and a place where enterprise makes a major contribution to the rich vibrancy of our neighbourhoods and communities. Despite Westminster having the highest number of businesses and employees than any other London borough, the business environment can be challenging with expensive premises, high levels of competition and economic uncertainty. We want to encourage projects that help support communities to create the right environment for businesses to survive and thrive. 

This is a capital fund meaning this fund can only cover the capital elemets of your project. Projects can receive pledges of up to £15,000 and/or 50% of the overall costs. 

What types of projects?

We are interested in funding enterprise related capital projects that support local residents to start up and grow their business. Some examples of projects that could be developed are:

• Bringing a disused space into use to support local entrepreneurs for sharing and developing new skills
• Improving the high street to make it a better place to do business and increase footfall
• Providing local people the opportunity to trial business ventures or running new community ventures or community hubs such as an art studio and gallery or theatre space (most have a community benifit and not just purely commerical)
• Creating the right environment to support the local economy. 

Outcomes – the impact your project should have

The Westminster Community Enterprise Fund is looking to support projects that promote involvement in enterprise. Good projects will create the right environment and support for individuals to start up in business and provide a space for community and social businesses that can positively benefit the local area. We are looking for unique and innovative ideas that will increase local business resilience, empower the community and create a city for all.

The Community Enterprise fund can be used to support campaigns throughout the borough which transform or create a new space. These spaces can be used by community groups and social enterprises, for sharing and developing new skills, testing and incubating new business ideas or running new community ventures or community hubs such as an art studio and gallery or theatre space. 

Please note - not all projects will be matched to all funds as the nature of each project may differ significantly and the funds are designed to support differnt types of projects in different parts of the borough. 

Is my project eligible for Spacehive?

Spacehive is all about transforming spaces and places!

A project on Spacehive must clearly show how it could impact a public space for the benefit of the community. This can be something that directly improves an area, such as painting a street mural or repurposing a disused building, something that can lead onto neighbourhood improvement, such as a feasibility study or planning consultation, or something temporary that brings people together such as organising a festival or event. The project can be either permanent or temporary, and funding can be sought for both revenue and capital costs. Please consider the following:

• Projects cannot be solely to fund ongoing work.
• Projects cannot be solely for charitable fundraising.

What happens if I don't hit my crowdfunding target?

Spacehive operates an all–or–nothing model, which means that if you don’t hit your target, none of the pledges are collected. This can seem daunting at first, however we believe that it is to the advantage of project creators.

• It helps you raise more money than possible due to the sense of urgency it creates.
• It’s less risky for everyone. If you need £5,000, it’s not much good having £1,000 and the crowd of people expecting you to complete a £5,000 project.
• It’s easier to make backers part with their money. They will only be charged if you hit your target and proceed to deliver your project.
• It works. Over 85% of Spacehive projects which get a pledge from a council 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 in overfunding. 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?

Spacehive fees

Anyone can start using Spacehive and create a project for free. However in order 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 success fee to projects which hit their target with us. 

Our success fee is a flat 5% (+1% VAT) on the total cost of your crowdfunding campaign. This fee is automatically calculated and added to your total when you input your project costs, and is visible in the budget section of your page so that this is transparent to all. 

The success fee continues to apply to funds raised during overfunding.

Transaction fees

In order to collect pledges, payment providers will also charge a small transaction fee (yes, every time you pay by card in a shop, the business pays this fee!).

PayPal charges 2.9% per pledge and GoCardless 1.2%. These are estimated at the beginning of your campaign and are automatically added onto your total project costs. Because these are estimations you might notice your campaign target fluctuating depending on the payment methods used by backers and the pledge sizes. Generally the transaction fees are overestimated so you’ll probably see your target decreasing over the duration of your campaign, especially if you get a big pledge or if you mostly receive GoCardless pledges.

As an example: £100 (project costs) + £6 (Spacehive fees + VAT) + £~2 (transaction fees) = £108 (total amount to raise)

Spacehive and transaction fees are shown in the Costs tab of project pages.

For a full list of Spacehive's FAQs please visit - https://about.spacehive.com/faqs/