Community and voluntary groups invited to attend free crowdfunding workshops hosted by East Devon District Council

More free crowdfunding workshops are being offered by East Devon District Council to help East Devon’s community and voluntary groups and other not for profit organisations access over £90,000 of funding available from the council through Crowdfunder.

Crowdfunding enables community groups and other not for profit organisations, including town and parish councils, to raise money online in one place to help make their project happen.

The council is running three free sessions:

  • Introduction to Crowdfunding - Tuesday 18 February 5pm to 6.30pm at Blackdown House in Honiton.
  • How to create a video for your crowdfunding project - Thursday 27 February 3.30pm to 6.30pm at Blackdown House in Honiton.
  • Introduction to Crowdfunding - Thursday 5 March 4.30pm to 6pm at Exmouth Town Hall.

Places on each workshop are limited and booking is essential. To book a place, email your name, your organisation, session name/date and number of people attending (limited to a maximum of three places per organisation) to: crowdfund@eastdevon.gov.uk

In addition to the East Devon funding, there is a large amount of county-wide crowdfunding money available from Devon County Council and Devon and Cornwall Police, as part of the Crowdfund Devon partnership.

Find out more information at Crowdfunder.

Groups can put their project onto the Crowdfunder website and start raising money any time, including from Crowdfund Devon. The basics of crowdfunding are:
1.A group has an idea for a project. This could be constituted voluntary and community groups, town and parish councils, registered charities, registered community interest companies or constituted not for profit organisations.
2.They fill in a form on the Crowdfunder website and make a simple video giving details about their project. Their idea is published on Crowdfunder.
3.They publicise this project and its presence on Crowdfunder as widely as possible to their ‘crowd’ – this could include the local community, visitors, businesses, users of the service, local and national organisations and funders, East Devon District Council, Devon County Council and Devon and Cornwall Police.
4.The crowd pledges cash to the project, and shares information about the project more widely.
5.If the project reaches its target it receives all the funding that has been pledged to it.

So far East Devon District Council has funded two projects through Crowdfunder:

  • The Beer Men’s Shed project, to help the mental health and isolation of men in Beer and the surrounding areas can now happen. Beer Men’s Shed gets men together from Beer and the surrounding areas in a workshop environment to socialise and make things. This is thanks to a successful crowdfunding campaign, including a contribution of £4,500 from East Devon District Council.
  • A community waffle house in Axminster, Waffle, has now opened and is serving its community. This is thanks to two successful crowdfunding campaigns, one including a £4,000 contribution from East Devon District Council. Their aim is to create a community owned and run space used to bring the community together to form unlikely friendships from the oldest to the youngest with a particular focus on those who are lonely or isolated.

Councillor Ian Thomas, portfolio holder for Finance at East Devon District Council said:

I’m pleased that we’ve been able to get involved in two very worthy projects so far through Crowdfund East Devon, but we really want to receive more applications and make full use of the money we’ve got available. We’ve already run five free sessions introducing crowdfunding to East Devon’s voluntary and community groups, plus three other workshops on more detailed aspects of crowdfunding. We want to give more people the opportunity to find out about crowdfunding and how it can help them.