There are multiple funds available through the Crowdfund Sunderland programme, including funds from Sunderland City Council, Integrated Care Board Sunderland and the National Lottery Community Fund. As part of this programme, you can pitch for up to a combined £2,000 pledge from the Council, the National Lottery Community Fund, Integrated Care Board Sunderland & Public Health Sunderland to help crowdfund your project.

These funds are pledged onto crowdfunding campaigns during particular windows of time called funding rounds. 

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

1.    EXPRESSION OF INTEREST/ ATTEND A WORKSHOP

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. We can also send you information on upcoming events. Visit the News & Events tab to sign up for the next workshop.

2.    PROJECT PAGE AND PITCH

Create your online project page where your project will be matched to the relevant local funds including the Crowdfund Sunderland fund, the Healthy City fund and the National Lottery Community Fund. When pitching to funds, you will ask you some additional questions about your project. 

Click here for more information on the funds and the types of projects they want to support. For an overview of the decision process see here. 

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 land owner permission for your project. 

4.    CROWDFUNDING

Run your crowdfunding campaign. 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

Sunderland Council will review all project campaigns and successful projects can expect to receive a pledge in late May. 

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. 

Who can we fund?

Only Not-for-profit groups (such including charities and CICs) and individuals can apply for funding from the council as part of Crowdfund Sunderland.

If you are unsure if your organisation is eligible pledge email [email protected]

What we can't fund

We cannot fund purely religious projects or projects which improve/renovate religious buildings unless it is transforming the space into an open community space. 

We cannot fund private enterprises who simply have a new business idea. All projects must provide benefits to the local community.

Is my project eligible for Spacehive?

Spacehive is all about specific projects which improve local places and benefit local communities. 

A project on Spacehive must clearly show how it would benefit the local community. This can be something that directly improves an area, such as improving the local park, painting a street mural or repurposing a disused building,  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 courses, classes, or ongoing work.
• Projects cannot be solely for charitable fundraising.
• Projects must be in the UK.

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 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’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. Spacehive has the highest success rate of any UK crowdfunding platform.

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. 

As an example, if you input project costs and it totals £100, a £5 fee and £1 VAT will be automatically added, giving a total of £106.

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!).

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.

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://help.spacehive.com/hc/en-us

Along with Sunderland City Council, the below organisations are also offering support to the program. 

Integrated Care Board Sunderland

Integrated Care Board Sunderland is responsible for planning, purchasing and monitoring the delivery and quality of most local healthcare and health services for the people of Sunderland. Our vision is to achieve Better Health for Sunderland by improving the health, wellbeing and life expectancy of Sunderland residents.  We are excited to be supporting Sunderland City Council’s new initiative for Crowdfund Sunderland and look forward to working collaboratively with the Council, local organisations and partners to offer more support for important projects and campaigns which will benefit our local communities.

As part of this support we have a £50,000 pot of funding available to support projects. Follow this link for more information. 

National Lottery Communtiy Fund

Sunderland City Council are delighted to announce that it has been awarded £50,000 of funding to support it's Crowdfund Sunderland programme. It has been provided by the National Lottery Community Fund's 'Reaching Communities' programme. Thanks to National Lottery players last year, the National Lottery Community Fund awarded over half a billion pounds of life-changing funding to communities across the UK.

The funding provided by the National Lottery Communtiy Fund gives groups crowdfunding the opportunity to pitch for an additional pledge, on top of the funding already available from Sunderland Council and NHS Sunderland CCG. Follow this link for more information on the funds available.  

Sunderland BID

Sunderland BID’s vision is to have a vibrant city centre, creating opportunities for everyone.  Everyone who lives here, works here, studies here and visits here.  These are very exciting times for the city centre and we have the opportunity to be very creative and innovative in how approach the future high street and its regeneration.  Crowdfund Sunderland is an ideal platform for people to get involved and play a real part in the future of this city

University of Sunderland

To be bold and inspirational in providing education, research and creative practice, which offers transformative experiences to students, staff, communities and business partners in the UK and across the world.

Community impact and social responsibility is included in our ‘Future Shapers’ ambition:

• A leading anchor institution in the North-East making significant social, economic and cultural contributions to our locality, displaying innovation, entrepreneurship, financial stability, efficiency and sustainability in our approach and delivery.
• We will have a demonstrable impact upon our city and region through engagement in enterprise, health, sport, culture, wellbeing and sustainability initiatives.

Sunderland Culture

Sunderland Culture was set up in 2016 to bring together cultural programmes from Sunderland City Council, University of Sunderland and Music, Arts and Culture (MAC) Trust into a single, independent, resilient delivery model and realise the ambition of a city brimming with creative potential. Sunderland Culture works in National Glass Centre and Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens, Arts Centre Washington, The Fire Station and delivers programmes of cultural engagement and events across the whole city. It works to ensure the power of great art, culture and creativity is harnessed for the benefit of Sunderland, its residents and visitors. Sunderland Culture’s mission is to improve life for everyone in Sunderland through culture.    

All Together Better

All Together Better (ATB) is made up of an alliance of provider and commissioning organisations working closely together to plan, deliver and improve health and care services in the community across Sunderland. The alliance includes Sunderland CCG, Sunderland City Council as commissioners, South Tyneside & Sunderland Foundation Trust, Cumbria Northumberland Tyne & Wear Foundation Trust, Sunderland GP Alliance, Sunderland Care & Support and all other providers and voluntary sector organisations currently commissioned by Sunderland CCG. All Together Better offers a unique opportunity to build on the strong foundations we have put in place and to provide truly joined up care and support in people’s homes, GP surgeries and in the community, helping people to remain independent for as long as possible and reducing the need for hospital stays. The purpose of ATB is to maximise people’s independence, good health and wellbeing across all of our communities in Sunderland.

Our vision is to enable the people of the city to shape Sunderland and their local communities for the future, making it an even better place. We want to tap into the passion and skills of the people of Sunderland and support their ideas to help the city reach its full potential.

We have a history of pulling together to make things happen. 120 years ago, the citizens of Sunderland ‘crowdfunded’ the Jack Crawford Monument in Mowbray Park. Jack Crawford, born in Sunderland, was honoured for bravery when he climbed the mast of his ship, HMS Venerable, during the Batter of Camperdown to nail the British flag back up. His actions were said to have raised the moral of the men and spurred them on to victory. Also, the Havelock Memorial which stands on Building Hill alongside two replica Sebastopol cannons was erected by public subscription in 1861. Sir Henry Havelock became an outstanding solider and successfully relieved Lucknow during the Indian Mutiny of 1857-58.

In 1904, Sunderland people honoured the Venerable Bede with a memorial, which was paid for by contributions from the people of the town. It is a cross and has carvings on all sides that are in the style of original Anglo-Saxon stone carvings, made when Bede was alive. The memorial is located at Whitburn Road, Roker, Sunderland. We are now partnering with Spacehive to make Crowdfund Sunderland the place to connect your ideas with the financial and practical resources to make them happen!

Want to support our projects too?
Contact Spacehive: [email protected]

​​​​​​​Cycling UK is a national charity focused on breaking down the barriers to cycling and making it accessible to a wider group of people. Starting from the Autumn 2022 funding round, organisations in Sunderland can apply for grants of up to £3,000 for projects which help adults to start or return to cycling being crowdfunded on Spacehive. Read more about the funding opportunity by following this link: https://www.spacehive.com/profile/cyclinguk2