Further Crowdfunding Plans Following Success of ‘Safeguarding The Standards’ Campaign

More support for local and community based crowdfunding projects could soon be offered if council plans are backed.

In a report due before Wrexham Council’s Executive Board next week it has been recommended that crowdfunding is considered as a funding solution for community-focused projects.

Crowdfunding is an ‘alternative form of funding’ and is the process of raising money from a large group of people to fund a community project or the like.

If the recommendation is approved than each project would be considered on a case by case basis by the relevant Head of Department and Lead Member.

Previously Wrexham Council have used ‘Spacehive’ to crowdfund, which saw a £4,000+vat subscription. Additional fees of 5% per completed project were also mentioned, which were included in the target amount, along with per-donation costs in line with usual internet transactions.

However the report proposes that AVOW are invited to submit a proposal to front future campaigns on behalf of the local authority.

The recommendations come off the back of Wrexham Council’s first Crowdfunding project, which raised£11,889 to safeguard four veteran standards.

17% of the money raised was directly pledged online via the campaign’s page on the Spacehive platform. The remaining £10,259 was donated off-line, either directly or at a fundraising event, for example, a cake sale, bucket collection, supermarket bag pack.

Details within the report state: “The strength of positive feeling about a project within a community must be sufficient to generate both pledges, and the people power needed to promote and support a campaign’s on and offline activities.

“To harness and capitalise upon community support, it is important that the decision to crowdfund can be made quickly.”

The report continues onto add:

– As a charity AVOW can claim Gift Aid on financial contributions made by UK tax payers, increasing their value by 25%.

– Access a broader range of crowdfunding platforms and potentially more payment processing fees and a winder range of models dictating the retention of pledges (Spacehive was chosen for this project because it is the only platform exclusively for civic projects)

– Allow the authority to distance itself from the campaign. Best practice suggests that campaigns fronted by local authorities are less successful because benefactors may perceive that they are politically driven, and / or be more inclined to believe that the authority could or should fund a project from its existing budget.

– Capitalise on its existing networks with community-minded individuals and groups. For example, volunteers and not for profit organisations t secure financial contributions and people power.

The Executive Board report continues onto add: “To benefit from Gift Aid, a scheme that increases the monetary value of donations made by UK tax payers, by enabling registered charities to reclaim tax, the Authority may wish to take AVOW up on its offer to front future campaigns, partner with another third sector organisation with charitable status, or it may opt to create a charity of its own.”

Speaking about the proposals, Lead Member for Communications and Partnerships, Cllr Hugh Jones said: “When a project comes forward we will look at the best way of delivering that project. There are different ways of delivering and different providers of fundraising.

“If we get a project to come forward we will look at it and engage where appropriate. It won’t be one size fits all.”

The report will go before Wrexham Council’s Executive Board at 10am on Tuesday 13 September. For those who can’t make the meeting it will be webcast and archived on the Wrexham Council website.