Crowdfunding experiences? « Hellobee Boards

I'm wondering if any of you, or anyone you're close enough to that you heard about the details, has ever done a successful kickstart/gofundme/crowdfund campaign, if so, how you went about getting others involved in it.

I'm not asking for myself - my mom teaches in a really impoverished area and is trying to put together a cool educational field trip for her kids. Asking the parents to pitch in isn't realistic - she's often bringing in coats and school supplies for students because some of their parents can't even afford basics like that, it's kind of heart breaking. She setup a crowdfunding type thing on a site specifically for teachers where everything gets verified and they even match donations, but now she's kind of stuck on how to get the word out and asked me for advice. I didn't really know what to tell her so I figured I'd see if any of you ladies have experience in this area, I know we have several teachers here :happy:

Obviously I shared the link on FB for her, but I'm trying to figure out how to promote it or get people involved beyond that. Most of the community is lower/lower-middle class, so while that seems like the obvious answer it doesn't seem like a very effective one. (Not including the link or trying to bug you guys for money, don't worry! Just hoping for some tips I can pass along or things I could do to help.)

sunny
coconut / 8430 posts

Jan 20, 2015

Is she on Donors Choose? I heard about that site on HB and picked a cool project to support.

I don't have any experience on getting the word out though.
wonderstruck
pomegranate / 3791 posts

Jan 20, 2015

@sunny: Yep, that's the one!
yoursilverlining
eggplant / 11824 posts

Jan 20, 2015

Can either of you network any contacts for shares on social media - i.e., local businesses in the area that would share on their social media pages, free spots on local radio, etc.?
wonderstruck
pomegranate / 3791 posts

Jan 20, 2015

@yoursilverlining: That's a good suggestion, we'll definitely look into that! Thanks, seems obvious now that you say it but somehow didn't occur to me.
Bluebonnet
persimmon / 1427 posts

Jan 20, 2015

Could you contact local mom groups (neighborhood groups, church groups, etc)? If there is an affluent area close by, you might have better luck sparking interest for donations.
MamaT
olive / 50 posts

Jan 20, 2015

I taught for 10 years before having my boys and like your mom worked in a very high need school. I did Donors Choose projects often. My husbands company would match any donations, so even if he donated $25 to my project, his company matched it, and then Donors Choose sponsors would match that. Also, at times I went to local "mom & pop" companies to help support their community. My teammate was able to get a car dealership to donate quite a bit to one of her projects. Make sure she lets people know their donation is a tax write-off just like any other donation- maybe will entice people to donate?! Hope she gets her project funded!
lisa1783
apricot / 457 posts

Jan 20, 2015

I think the first week a new project is on donors choose, all donations are doubled with the promo code INSPIRE. I would really promote that aspect about it because it makes people more likely to donate if they know their impact is doubled for free.
wonderstruck
pomegranate / 3791 posts

Jan 20, 2015

@lisa1783: Yes, they are still doing that and I'm hoping it will make a huge difference for her! I live a bit away from where she teaches but just asked some friends who still live in that area about local moms groups, and a couple of them are going to share it there for me.

@MamaT: The mom and pop thing is a great idea too - she's having the kids write thank you letters and pictures and whatnot for the donors, and I bet it would look great for the mom and pop shops to have something like that to put up in their business to show their support for the community!
Jess1483
nectarine / 2641 posts

Jan 21, 2015

I used Donor's Choose a couple times when I was teaching in the inner city. My projects were always funded by a mix of people I know and people I didn't. I would ask my parents to send it around to friends. I don't remember doing much else. A lot of projects get funded at the last minute, which, while annoying, was still great! Good luck to your mom.
808love
pomelo / 5866 posts

Jan 21, 2015

Somewhat related: What I did to get my grant application noticed by the local credit union was to make a mock up newspaper cover using Pages on the Mac and basically made the headlines read like these kids were being helped by the company. Seeing the 'after' , gave me a leg up.
If your mom could do a video, that would be great! She could use the trailer on iMovie app on a iphone and have the kids holding signs or doing something related.
Anagram
eggplant / 11716 posts

Jan 21, 2015

@wonderstruck: I've had several friends do Donors choose and usually they try to get all the teachers in the school to share the same project on social media, so you have 30-50 teachers sharing on social media all at once--even if each person only gets 1-2 donors, it adds up.

When I worked in a low income school, I did class fundraising (obviously, it had to be approved by my principal first). The only thing was, I had to use my own personal money to start the fundraiser, then pay myself back. But each year I would raise about $1000, which paid for my class field trip. I also had to use my own personal time--I sold popcorn (it was called Deanne's popcorn) after school and at school events like games, concerts, etc). Each bag of pre-packaged popcorn was 1.50 and we got to keep 50c. I would set up a table outside where parents picked up and do that after school every day until we raised what we needed.

I taught a gifted class that studied humanities--and we visited a renaissance faire and held our own ancient greek olympics each year with the funds.
T.H.O.U.
wonderful clementine / 24134 posts

Jan 21, 2015

Do you or someone have an iPad or flyers about the program? I would suggest some old fashioned word of mouth. Ask a local hardware store if you can pass out flyers on a Saturday morning. Find a restaurant and ask if you can set up the iPad at a table for people to log in and donate there one day. Social media is great but many miss the news or are scared its a scam but if they see a face may be more willing.

I assume she has also looked into grants for education?
Chuckles
persimmon / 1495 posts

Jan 21, 2015

When I did Donors Choose projects for my classroom, I would share the link on Facebook and then have my friends and family share it too.
mrsjazz
coconut / 8234 posts

Jan 21, 2015

@wonderstruck: My husband is a teacher. He works in low-income neighborhood and was teaching Macbeth at the same time Alan Cummings was doing a one-man show on Broadway of Macbeth. He was able to get the tickets for a cheaper rate through the show, but still needed to raise money. He used gofundme.

He originally wanted to raise $3k but ended up raising $4,500 and took 40 students to see the show.
-He posted on social media, FB/Twitter. He posted regularly to social media with updates and asked other people to share. A friend tweeted the link to Alan Cummings and the show's twitter page and they ended up retweeting.
-He e-mailed his entire address book asking them to share the donation page (and donate of course!)
-He sent updates every few days (he was trying to raise the money in a month, if you're mom has a longer period of time to fundraise she could do weekly.
-He asked all of the students to tell their friends and family and printed some small flyers that the kids could give out and asked local shops to post/display.

Your mom shouldn't be afraid of e-mailing/posting regularly. People can scroll past if they are tired of it. Sometimes people will finally give towards the end because of all the messaging. So, like I said he raised more than enough money and was able to take more students. He got written up in a local paper (and we're in NYC, so that's a big thing). He created a thank you video to send to everyone who donated after it was over with some footage of the kids going to the show and talking about the Broadway play in school and them saying thank you.
LaughLines
clementine / 880 posts

Jan 21, 2015

large corporations have charity requirements they have to meet - often given monthly budgets they HAVE to spend during that month, as long as its going to an actual non-profit organization. I used to go to wal mart and a local grocery store for bone marrow drives i would do and they would give me whatever i wanted. Clip boards, full pallets of water, notebooks, pens, cups, etc. They would just note the value of those items and fill out a form with the non-profit number and i'd walk out the door with the free stuff. This may work with cash donations, too, from big companies, or at the least you could ask for some supplies for the trip (snacks, name tags, etc) to help offset some of the costs.
Mrs. Tiger
blogger / pomegranate / 3044 posts

Jan 21, 2015

Is there a university near by? Perhaps you could get a club or sorority or something to champion the cause...

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