Planning and running a successful donation and/or rewards-based crowdfunding campaign involves a lot of steps – from deciding on your story, mapping out your contacts, developing your marketing campaign, deciding what rewards to offer and how much you need to raise.
If you haven’t crowdfunded before it can all feel a bit daunting! But by analysing what other people have done with their campaigns and following a tried and trusted method you can make the process much more straightforward.
One of the most creative parts of planning your campaign is working out how much money you need to raise and what lovely rewards you will offer your backers. But whilst this part is exciting, you are in unknown territory, and it can be a bit challenging to work it all out.
Are you raising enough to cover all your costs AND ensure you raise enough money to do what you want to do to grow your business?
For example, if you need £10,000 to buy a new piece of equipment and your rewards cost £3,000 to develop and deliver (always remember to include postage and distribution costs!), you actually need to raise £13,000.
And then on top of that you would need to add in any crowdfunding platform fees, transaction fees and pay any VAT (if you are a VAT registered business). So, in order to pay for a £10,000 piece of equipment and not be out of pocket, you might need to raise a total of £15,000.
Fear not though! Our handy Crowdfunding Calculator works it all out for you.
To receive a copy of the calculator please email info@womensbusinesscentre.com with the subject Crowdfunding Calculator. Please also confirm you are a member of the Women’s Business Centre in the email.
Once you receive the calculator, play around with the volumes and prices (full instructions are in the Calculator) until you work out your campaign target – the Calculator will say “My Target Reached!”.
Within the Calculator you will be able to create up to six different rewards for your backers. We don’t recommend any more than that – too much choice makes it difficult for people to decide. Just ensure you offer a range of rewards from £10-£500. This is a guideline – the amounts will depend on your business. Please get in touch with us here (insert link) if you want some further guidance on this.
And finally, don’t spend too much time crafting the perfect rewards! On average 30-50% of the money you get in donations/rewards-based crowdfunding will be donations (i.e. your backers don’t want a reward – they are just happy to support you). Rewards are only one small part of the entire crowdfunding process – there is no need to make your crowdfunding campaign more complex than it needs to be.
Sign up for news and updates about Crowdfunding here.
