Crowdfunding Campaigns Paused for Stakeholder Review

Crowdfunding for cooperatives

Featured Pilot Campaign

+$20k raised

5 %

Platform Fees

CrowdWork.Coop is working in partnership with Social Conscience PBC developing digital infrastructure services for more cooperative and resilient local economies.

As one of several efforts to support co-op ecosystem development in the DC region, CrowdWork.Coop partnered with Social Conscience PBC to initiate a pilot program with the goal to alleviate funding barriers for early-stage co-op business and project growth. To do so, we began developing a direct referral platform for crowdfunding that serves as a non-extractive local alternative to other fundraising platform options.

How does it work?

A campaign page is created with the help of CrowdWork.Coop digital services.

When filling the donation form, the donor has the option to contribute additional amount to help support the platform and additional campaigns for co-ops.

On form submission, the donor’s entire transaction is sent directly to the campaign holder (no money touches the platform itself).

Form entries are collected in the database, segmenting donations to the co-op campaign vs those to the platform.

The full donor report is sent to the campaign holder, along with a request to return funds in the amount indicated to be contributed to the platform.

These funds are sent back to Social Conscience PBC as the merchant account service provider. These funds will pay for labor and overhead expenses to improve the platform’s functionality and features, and support the successful launch of more campaigns.

Prior to this pilot stage we raised $1,500 from friends, family, and co-op advocates to fully subsidize the initial pilot campaign costs including:

- Developing a prototype of the platform
- Developing an intake process for nominees or applicants looking to raise funds
- Co-designing personalized landing pages with existing digital assets of the campaign holders
- Free web hosting for the duration of the campaigns
- Multiple digital strategy sessions, and
- Professional marketing assistance from one or more CrowdWork.Coop members

Additionally, so far our partnered effort allowed us to:

- Develop a first working prototype of a functional crowdfunding vehicle for cooperatively-funded projects and campaigns.
- Host our first successful pilot fundraiser for a worker-owned co-op in the DC region.
- Hire a local web development training program graduate to build our first campaign’s landing page through a learn & earn model.
- Provide a direct referral and proof of work to this individual that landed him full-time gainful employment in his target field.
- Provide technical assistance to multiple co-op groups that applied for free digital service support and fundraiser landing pages to help them get closer to market readiness.
- Begin integrating the functionality into a plugin for other co-ops to host on their own websites.

"Crowdwork.Coop and Social Conscience PBC have been a joy to work with. Without their leadership and expertise, we may have never had a successful inaugural crowdfunding campaign.

We strongly recommend any co-op who wants or needs direct support in going to their next level to work with Crowdwork.Coop and Social Conscience PBC."

Blain and Dominic

Earth-Bound Building

Thanks for helping us reach the 1st fundraising milestone!

Round 1 | Goal: $1,500

1st Milestone reached!

Contributors

Future contributions will enable co-op campaigns to leverage technology that matches them with the resources within the communities that they help grow. It will also help connect market access and growth needs with the idle capacity of the local talent pool.

In particular, future funds will allow us to:

Continue piloting our web and marketing services for co-op campaigns.
Hire more local web developers to design additional skins and template options.
Integrate publishing features to provide campaigns greater control over their narrative.
Add options for contributors to donate their skills and time.

More Local Capacity
More Payment and Service Integrations
Dynamic Dashboards
Measure Impact

Capital is historically hard for startup businesses – especially co-ops – to attain. As capacity constraints prevent existing businesses from scaling or new ventures from successfully launching at all, innovative approaches for community-led financing must be explored.

Existing crowdfunding platforms offer little guidance on how to successfully raise funds, and lack a focus on community building, especially within any particular location.

This new core co-op crowdfunding module is intended to be implemented as a regional non-extractive, regenerative, full-service fundraising alternative to platforms such as Patreon, Kickstarter, or GoFundMe.

Submit a Crowdfunding Campaign Application

Full service digital strategy, campaign landing page co-design, and marketing support for launching a successful online crowdfunding campaign.

More Reasons to Contribute

By donating to CrowdWork.Coop campaigns, you will be supporting the development of:

A non-extractive, cooperative-centric crowdfunding platform that encourages collaboration between local groups and individuals.
A shared space for finding team members, resources, sponsors, and donors for any crowdfunding campaign a co-op or project group wishes to run.
An access point for stakeholders to make direct donations to local co-op or mission-aligned project initiatives of their choice.
A template for other platform builders in the network to adopt for their own cooperative fundraising needs.
Connect market access and growth needs with the idle capacity of the local talent pool.

Our Cooperative Fundraising Model

100% Direct Funding,
0% Platform Fees!

Contributors pay the PayPal fee up front, and we don’t charge campaigners anything to post a project or pitch to the platform.

100% of the chosen donated amount goes directly to the project of choice.

Optional Contributions

We use crowdfunding to fund our work, just like you do.

We only get paid from explicit donations added on to project or campaign contributions.