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So I proposed that my Drama group try crowdfunding to support our activities financially.

As I wouldn't be able to attend the AGM myself (It was yesterday) and even if I could springing an idea like this would be wrong so I sent the following to all the members by E mail so everybody would have an idea as to what I was talking about.
I did so 7 days before the meeting, allowing plenty of time I believed for people to read, understand & ask any questions/ concerns.

The response was... amazing.

NOTHING not even a " thanks"

Yesterday a friend who is also a member attended the AGM. I asked him how it went...
He said that the rest of the group couldn't understand what I had sent them... and that I would have to "brake it down" for the committee if I wanted them to go for my proposal...

So can someone look over what I did & tell me where I went wrong?  Because it sounded straightforward to me...

Although that doesn't explain why no one could tell me this themselves, dose it?

Crowd funding Proposal.
Dear fellow St Marks players.
As everybody is aware our drama group is slowly haemorrhaging money. In order to help this situation I am suggesting that the committee considered adopting the following method of raising money. It would have the advantage that we can use this to raise funds from people who for whatever reason cannot attend performances or do not have a business to advertise. It will of course require some work on the part of all members ... we will all have to harness "Pester Power" but with effort we can do this.



Crowd funding has its origins in the concept of crowdsourcing, which is the broader concept of an individual reaching a goal by receiving and leveraging small contributions from many parties. Crowd funding is the application of this concept to the collection of funds through small contributions from many parties in order to finance a particular project or venture.
Crowd funding models involve a variety of participants. They include the people or organizations that propose the ideas and/or projects to be funded, and the crowd of people who support the proposals. Crowd funding is then supported by an organization (the "platform") which brings together the project initiator and the crowd.
In point of fact, Croydon Radio has used this system to raise over £5,000 to replace broadcasting equipment. In return for the minimum £5. "investment" supporters received a notation on a plaque inside the radios offices.

Before St Marks think about launching a crowd funding campaign, we must make sure that we have a realistic budget in place. Crowd funding, is not just about lowering costs, but also about asking for enough money from funders. Projects need to take into account the total costs associated with a crowd funding project like paying a commission to the platform, ( the company to whom we would be asking to handle our account)  postage  costs for rewards, potential tax implications and the cost of making and distributing advertising.

Platforms (Our crowd funding provider)
There are now hundreds of different crowd funding platforms (providers) and there is quite a bit of variation in what they offer. The most obvious differences are on the type of financing offered and the sector they target. We will also have to do some research into what their terms and conditions of service are. 

Kickstarter, for example, focuses on the creative industries,
Spacehive on anything happening in the public space and
Fundageek purely on academic research projects.
Some are very specific such as Cancer UK's MyProjects platform for cancer research.
Whereas others are general like Indiegogo which funds anything from comic books to funerals.
Most do reward crowd funding but others offer equity like Crowdcube and lending like FundingCircle. ( These two would not be suitable for our pourposes as they deel with people trying to set up their own companies.)

Another important difference is the commission they take from the money you raise. This usually varies between 3 - 7 per cent.  Most platforms tend to operate an all-or-nothing model where you only get funded if you reach your target while others adopt a keep-what-you-raise approach.

Before you launch your campaign, think carefully about which platform will be best suited for what you are trying to achieve, and will help you best reach the investors for this.

Nesta is backing a number of UK based crowd funding platforms through the Cabinet office Innovation in Giving Fund: buzzbnk which specializes in social venturing, Solar Schools which helps schools fundraise for renewables, and Peoplefundit which supports a range of projects and start-up ideas including creative projects.

Be clear on what you are trying to achieve with how much money
Danae Ringelman, co-founder of Indiegogo, highlights how, when attracting funding from the crowd, one of the key drivers for ensuring engagement and funding is clarity and transparency about the project or idea. Make sure you communicate clearly to potential funders what your project is, what it is trying to achieve, how much money is needed to make it a reality and what you will deliver and when. If the targets are unrealistic, or the plans for delivering and implementing aren't feasible, the crowd often (like traditional investors) won't engage with your project.

Crowd funding campaigns succeed because they appeal to people's passions and interests, whether it's an idea to raise a statue of Robocop in Detroit city or provide sustainable homes for women in crisis. So, while it's important to communicate to people what they get out of it, make sure you tell the story of why you are passionate about making your project a reality.

As Lee Moyer emphasizes in his Kickstarter white paper on lessons for entrepreneurs using crowd funding 'the movie is key' to doing this. For Example using a short video to communicate your idea is the best way to get your pitch across to the crowd as it enables entrepreneurs to put a face on who is behind the project and give a taster of what the project will look like in a format that is easy to share. Lessons from Kickstarter show that projects with a video component succeed at a higher rate than those without (50 per cent vs. 30 per cent). There are lots of guides on what makes a good crowd funding campaign video however the main insight from Moyer is to 'keep it short', as potential funders often wont engage with videos longer than three minutes. Approaching the charities we support for their own contribution to their causes would help to. They must have a pre prepared publicity statement. Should we contemplate returning the Stanley Halls, the Stanley Halls indicative should also be contacted. They may be contemplating a similar scheme we might engage in a project together which will automatically give us a wider group of people to raise fund from. Cooperation which I am sure most of us agree would be mutually beneficial.
I would like to make a suggestion that, as our summer shows seem to always either run at a loss or barely brake even... that should we follow this suggestion that our first project should be the raising of sufficient funds to cover our major costs... to wit the hire of the performance premises. This means that we would not have to work so hard trying to sell advertising space/ A difficult task as I know from trying to sell space myself. Most peoples reaction being that although the cost of advertising space is low... the very small audience... many of whom were the same people who came to previous productions means that if they received no response the first time there is little reason to attempt again.
    Perhaps if we are successful enough, we may be able to afford another day added to our performance schedule.


Campaign and create a community around your campaign long before you launch
Doing work on engaging potential funders to get them interested in your campaign before launching can significantly improve your chances of success. Indeed, campaigns that 'cold start' and don't do any engagement or marketing before the first day of launching often struggle to reach their funding goal. The value of having an existing community of potential funders to tap into on day one of your campaign is best illustrated by when people with an existing fan base venture into crowd funding. For example, when famous American entrepreneur and author Seth Godin launched his campaign to crowdfund his book project 'the Icarus Deception' he reached his target of $100K within three hours, because of the huge interest from his global fan base.

However, less famous entrepreneurs also have the opportunity to create high levels of interest around their project before launching, by using mail outs, blogging and other social media platforms to promote ideas sometimes as early as six months before launching. Tapping in to your existing network of friends can help create the first buzz around your project. Equally, if you can't get your friends excited about your project pre-launch, then that will be a good indicator that you will struggle to engage a wider community of funders.

A good way of getting people engaged before launching campaign is including them in ideation and design of what is being proposed, such as the name of a character in the game, or colour of the swings on a playground you want to raise funding for.

..and get your core community of backers to donate early on

One of the many stats on Kickstarter and likelihood of success show that the odds for campaigns successfully reaching their goals are ten times higher once they have reached about half of their funding goal. To understand this and maximize the number of people that will contribute to your project two factors are important to consider.

One is that many people may only look at your pitch once so you want to ensure you maximize the likelihood of them funding when they come to your pitch. Two, the more you have already raised the more likely someone is to contribute. Keeping these points in mind it is important to segment your potential funders into groups of how likely they are to invest and try to bring those less likely to invest to the pitch when you already have significant amounts of capital raised. 

A useful approach is to encourage friends and family and other core backers that have been reached through the pre-launch to donate in the first days of your campaign, create momentum and get it towards 50 per cent which will help convince potential new backers of the increased likelihood of success.
...and make the most of social media
While the project campaign is launched on the crowd funding platform, most of the actual marketing and building a movement around the project happens outside the platform. Social media and online networks are crucial in this part of campaigning, as Othmar Manfred Lehner concludes 'Crowd -funded ventures rely heavily upon networks, mainly provided by the Internet. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin can help give exposure to your campaign.

Having friends, families and fans promote your campaign can help give an initial boost, but the highest impact comes from targeting social media influencers that have clout in your target crowd. A tweet, or even better, a blogpost from them, can communicate your campaign to thousands of followers and readers. Social media is not just a way to promote the campaign, but also helps facilitate the two-way conversation with updates on progress comments and feedback on the idea, between funder and entrepreneur, which is a key element to any campaign.

Many campaigns also successfully set up dedicated blogs for their project. As with more traditional marketing, getting your campaign mentioned by online or print media can provide a massive boost towards reaching the funding goal. For example, it was an interview with online magazine Mashable that quickly took the Alpha mobile heart rate monitor project from $85,000 to well beyond their target of $100,000.

...and the rewards and perks you offer funders
Making it clear what people get back from their investment is an integral part of the plan for any organization seeking investment, whether it is through more traditional types of investment or crowd funding. However, for reward-based crowd funding campaigns in particular, structuring the different tiers and offering better rewards as you move from low to high level tiers is a key feature of maximizing the overall contributions you can get from funders. For example in the lowest tier of the campaign for computer game Starforge $15 gets you one copy of the computer game, whereas the medium $100 tier gets you three copies of the game plus a range of game merchandise.

Also, it's important to ensure that the tiers and rewards are set at the right level and correspond with what funders want and are willing to pay for. From Kickstarter we know that the average pledge is $70, but the common pledge is $25.
Break your funding goal into multiple targets
One of the driving forces behind crowd funding is setting and achieving targets. To make the most of this, ambitious entrepreneurs can break their campaign into different funding goals, with the first goal being the minimum that needs to be raised, and then adding stretched goals, each representing an added value to the final product, such as additional material in a documentary or added features and levels to a video game.

For example, Revolution Software raised $771,560 for the video gameBroken Sword: The Serpent's Curse - almost twice as much as their minimum goal of $400,000 using stretch limits. To get from $400,000 to $600,000 added locations in South America and Middle East and from there added new characters to get to $700,000.
This paper sums up the history of crowd funding and includes examples of its different types.

Download the paper


...with your (potential funders) both on the good and the bad news


In their guide to new campaigns, Crowd funding platform Rockthepost emphasize how 'You can't expect to tell a story, leave and then get all the funding you need. Not only doesn't it work like that, but it can ruin your whole campaign. Never let your followers and fans hanging (especially when they ask questions)'. Those who already have, or are considering contributing funds will be interested in how your campaign is going, so keep communicating with them about progress. This could be on anything from update on an added feature of your project, to how you have taken on board feedback, responding to questions or just thanking backers for their comments. This is also the case when things go wrong. For example, when the Flying Disco Ball project struggled with their Burning Man installation due to bad weather, they kept updating their backers on what was happening and thereby managed to avoid complaints and disappointed funders.
Finally, remember, there is an abundance of campaigns out there that have already been successful. Before, after and during your launch there will be lots of easy wins for your campaign by copying what has already worked for others.
Crowd funding is great for smaller charities: Some smaller community charities have high social capital and often have a large volunteer base which can be mobilized. Smaller targets can have a huge impact on their delivery.
Make sure your campaign looks immediately popular: Campaigns should launch with at least 20% pledged immediately before wider publicity. If people visit your landing page and no-one has donated then they will be wary.


As you can see from the above, crowd funding is a well-established means of raising money. Like any method it has its drawbacks as well as its advantages and it would mean some effort on every member to help with the raising of money by this method.
I would happily oversee a St Marks Players Twitter account. (Setting it up would be free) and needless to say our web site should have a link to this account our facebook page and to the crowd funding site.

I thank everyone at St Marks players in advance for taking the time to read though this proposal

Yours Roberta C Roe.

If you weren't there to talk it through, you probably suffered from tl:dr (too long: didn't read) syndrome. Looks like you cut'n'pasted some huge chunks of info there about crowdfunding in general - maybe a much shorter, bullet-pointed proposal, would've confused them less.

Quote from: Dandontdare on 10 July, 2013, 02:29:23 PM
If you weren't there to talk it through, you probably suffered from tl:dr (too long: didn't read) syndrome. Looks like you cut'n'pasted some huge chunks of info there about crowdfunding in general - maybe a much shorter, bullet-pointed proposal, would've confused them less.

Yep !!.....Definitely..... tl:dr....
While the ideas / facts contained within are good...........It's far, far too long and your 'audience' will have 'tuned out' before they have even gone halfway through it......Sorry, but that's just the nature of people....
As Dandontdare says a much, much shorter bullet pointed proposal may have 'sparked' a bit of interest, which could have then led to further discussion....

If you still have the energy, keep trying, .....but remember the old maxim for getting information across......KISS....( Keep it simple, stupid )....Straightforward, simple and direct is the way to go....Once interest is aroused, then you come in with further details....
Good Luck.......( Although it sounds like they are 'too set in their ways' to adapt much ).....

Aye, sorry Doc - I didn't make it past the second paragraph. Detail's fine, but any academic essay or business proposal starts with a one or two sentence summary of the whole thing for the benefit of anyone who can't be arsed trawling through it all.

At its simplest level, your crowdfunding proposal amounts to asking folk for money via the internet, so it wouldn't hurt to put it as simply as that on one page at the start of your proposal. All the rest of your group needs to know is how much it would cost to set that up, how much you'd be asking folk to donate, and what they'd be getting in return.

Yes, that is a lot of text for people to absorb.

You can always do a summary version and email that to your members. Further explanation in response to questions can be supplied later if necessary.

It is always worth considering how to make large chunks of text digestible by breaking it up into sections, using intro paragraphs, subheads, bullet points etc.

Hmmm.. I surpose it was too much to ask people to READ though something that might gain them money.
I've  never done this before and I wanted to make sure all points were covered.

I didn't want them to think that it was going to be done without effort.
Nor did I want them to think that this was some cock a memie scheme that I thought up... that this was a legitimate system of raising funds that had been tried and tested.
(Believe it or not... but there are people who  have never heard of and don't know what crowdfunding is ... ) Hence leaving the links open. if you followed them it would have been clear that this isn't something I made up...)
Ah well back to square one

Well, you don't sound huffy or anything.

Actually, aside from everyone who commented being right about giving people the gist before waffling on with the details, there's something else you might want to bear in mind...

Quote from: The Doctor Alt 8 on 10 July, 2013, 02:06:21 PM
I thank everyone at St Marks players in advance for taking the time to read though this proposal

Yours Roberta C Roe.

You don't thank people in advance for reading through a proposal at the end of the proposal. That bit should probably be at the top.

I can see why you would be annoyed by the response Doc, I've fallen into the same trap in the past while proposing/communicating ideas to groups and it did irritate, but I'm afraid you've just fallen foul of human nature and there's no use taking it personally or thinking poorly of your audience.

You're not wrong to include all that info, but it needs to support your argument rather than drowning it.  First, I'd agree with the folk above who suggested you summarise your idea in two or three sentences.  Then put a more detailed outline in bullet points taking no more than half a page in total. 

Those two things together should take up no more than one well-spaced 12pt font page.  No-one reads more than a page at a meeting, or prior to one - I suspect it's as well to consider it impossible.  The number of AGMs I've been to where people have a dozen questions about the first or last page of accounts/report, and then completely miss the crap in the middle...

After that break up/organise the rest of your text into clear relevant sub-headings based on your earlier bullet points, and entitle it 'Supporting Information'.  That way anyone who is interested can look further, and everyone else can take comfort in the fact that you've done loads of research and move on.

But I can't emphasise it enough:  Your point in two or three sentences, then bulleted points, but no more than one page.  That's your shop window, the rest is only for people you've already enticed in.

I'm bored at work and I could only be bothered to skim read that. From my skimming you mention multiple crowd funding schemes and how they work but not once did you mention what type of rewards yours could give out!

Wow - that is some email and I am sorry to say that I zoned out myself.

That is far too much info for a first email and I agree with the other comments about cutting it down.  Also, you always have to be careful with wording.  Starting off with "As everybody is aware our drama group is slowly haemorrhaging money" is going to get some people's backs up and then they are not inclined to read the rest of what you have put.

I would also say that in this instance you really needed to be at the AGM to follow up.  You have put forward the initial proposal and if you are not there to push it along then this will go nowhere fast.  Unfortunately at this stage, its all down to you.  Hopefully none of what I have said has caused any offence as that is not my intention - just my thoughts as to why it might not have been received as you hoped.

I got to the end of the second paragraph with the burning question "What can we [imagining I'm part of your drama group] offer a lot of people to persuade them to each give us a few quid?" but you didn't answer that so I stopped there.

You've obviously done a lot of research and you will need that knowledge to make the project a success. However people don't care about the details if they haven't bought into the concept. I suggest that you boil the idea down to the fundamentals, persuade the group that this is a good idea, and then be ready with the rest of the details when they ask questions or try to pick holes in your idea.

If it helps, I think the essence is "This is a tried-and-tested method. We use a website that already exists for this kind of thing to run a 30-day campaign asking people to pledge some money to our group. If we reach our initial goal, maybe £x, we promise to give a reward to each contributor. The more they pledged the more stuff they get. These rewards could range from something simple like a badge or 'thank you' certificate for small pledges up to offering a walk-on part to one or two individuals who make a large pledge. We would also make extra rewards available if the total amount reaches set 'stretch goals'. These encourage people to tell their friends and get them to pledge too. If, at the end of the 30 days, we haven't reached the initial goal then nobody pays any money or gets any rewards and we think of something else."

Definitely worth putting that in bullet points if presenting it as text, but it's probably best to do the initial pitch face-to-face. Perhaps informally in the pub? Tell them the basics and, if there is any spark of interest, they'll start with the questions. Which you can answer because you've done all the research and it is a feasible idea. If your group backs it.

Finally, if you want a visual aid to demonstrate how the process works, check out the graph in this update :http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/599092525/the-order-of-the-stick-reprint-drive/posts/166273

Good luck.

I have to agree that it is very long and detailed.

Tordelback makes excellent points about bullets. Really if you are trying to sell something to the people you want to grab them, once they are grabbed then you can start to flesh out the details.

Often a top down approach is good, think a newspaper article where you have a headline, then a summary leading into more detail. you can just grab the reader with the headline and summary and then elaborate.

Bullet points are good in this digital age people often just skip to them.

Your explanation on crowd funding is a bit involved you could just say:

• it's on the internet
• you set a target amount you want to raise
• interested people pledge cash in return for something if the target is reached

You could put a list of potential rewards

• front row seats
• after play party invite - meet the stars :-)
• VIP tickets with glass of champers

Just my two penneth, good luck with it all.

Join another group.

Not even read it.

Keep it simple, the easier it is to understand, the easier it will be to implement.

Tell them what they need to know.

Don't describe the water that they are already drowning in, instead describe the life-saver that you are going to throw them.

It's a story: beginning, middle, end.

Tell it differently, be original, do it as a play?

Finally: present it yourself.

You're all aware of the irony of advising The Doc to keep it brief and snappy, then writing posts that go on for almost as long as her own, and which explain in great detail how to keep things brief and snappy to avoid losing folk's attention.

Thread needs more werewolves.

Quote from: sauchie on 12 July, 2013, 04:44:14 PM

You're all aware of the irony of advising The Doc to keep it brief and snappy, then writing posts that go on for almost as long as her own, and which explain in great detail how to keep things brief and snappy to avoid losing folk's attention.

Yes, that had occurred to me.

Quote from: M.I.K. on 12 July, 2013, 04:58:27 PM
Thread needs more werewolves.

You called?

Quote from: sheldipez on 12 July, 2013, 06:14:40 PM

Quote from: M.I.K. on 12 July, 2013, 04:58:27 PM
Thread needs more werewolves.

You called?

Woah!  That's half-a-werewolf more than I expected.

We need more cheese to make this work.

Roberta, cut it down to a dozen sentences at most and it will work. I'm happy to take a look at it for you and make sure it's nice and tidy, and easy to understand. It's what I do for a living.

Cheers

Trout

Thanks I'll have a think...
:D