Articles
Crowdfunder
Great Ideas
Grey gets its own crowdfunding website to allow our members to gather
support and funds for their own the projects
Nathan
Young,
Projects
Officer
Between 2012 and 2015 the crowdfunding market grew from $2.7 Billion to $34.4
Billion. Using the internet, people are able
to support new ideas, from dance performances to marathons, from headphones to
microloans. This summer, Grey is getting
our own branded platform called ‘Great
Ideas’ through which anyone can support
the projects suggested by the Grey College
community.
Crowdfunding is a process by which money is raised via many donors each paying
a small amount. Anyone - students, staff
or alumni - can submit their suggestions
for projects which will then be approved
by Grey College staff in relation to our
suitability guidelines (no illegal projects
please). Projects could include new sports
kit, theatre rights or perhaps money for a
society to attend a conference. The creators of the project will then film a video,
write a piece of text about their project
and name the benefits that backers will get
for giving money. In the above examples
these might be club t-shirts, tickets to a
final performance or a private newsletter
produced about what the group learned.
For some projects, backers will effectively
be preordering a finished product while in
others they will be donating and receiving
a small thank you in return. All this information will then be displayed on a web page for
the project on the Great
Ideas website.
Once this web page has been set up,
the clock begins ticking. The project has
a month to meet its funding target. The
project creators will share the project using
social media and anyone can donate using
the site. If the project does not reach its
goal then no one gets charged and the
project does not take place - this ensures
that people only pay for feasible projects. Imagine the Grey College Women’s
Football Club requires £1000 for a trip to
Manchester - if they raise £1000 when the
project closes then they’ll attend and then
send backers reports of how they spent
their time; if they only raise £900 in pledges, nothing happens, noone pays, no trip,
no reports. That said, academic fundraisers have a much higher success rate than
unbranded crowdfunders, probably owing
to close knit community and their formal
approval process.
Great Ideas will have a soft launch over
the summer with an initial project run by
Grey Alumnus Steve Gregory. He is raising
funds to help make Fountains Hall a disability friendly space, installing ramps and
a disabled toilet. The College is providing
£2000 worth of matched funding, so early
backers will find their donation doubled. In
September we will launch fully, with students and any other Grey College members able to submit ideas.
The major benefit of a crowdfunding platAmbitious
student projects are much
more likely to
succeed with
external backing. LEFT, The
recent Bassment Jazz Tour.
RIGHT, Macbeth
performed in
Fountains Hall
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