in Crowdfunding Strategies

Recently, we opened the doors for higher education students to raise funds for projects and research on Skolafund. This indirectly means we welcome campaigns for projects run by teams.

Before this, more than a hundred campaigns were run by individuals and most of them turned out to be successful.

If individual students can crowdfund successfully, logically, crowdfunding campaigns run by teams should be even easier!

This is because, when you are running a campaign in a team, you have more manpower and more connections to potential sponsors than individual campaigners. The probability of failing should be very very low, if your team puts in the work.

If you do fail, it means you probably have an ineffective team, unreliable teammates or poor leadership (this is for you to reflect on your own). By default, it should be easier than running a campaign alone.

Despite so, to maximise your chances of success, we have decided to write this set of articles to help you out further.

Implement them diligently and you will most likely succeed. Importantly, be honest to yourself, and don’t skip anything.

This is part one of the guide to running crowdfunding campaign in a team. More to come in the future!

Part 1: Plan & Set Specific Targets for Each Team Member to Work Towards

As the saying goes, “failing to plan is planning to fail”

You need to set daily targets.

Without daily targets, it will be like walking in the dark. You wont know if your campaign is doing well or not.

When you have targets, things will be clear for you and your teammates. You will be aware if you are on track, or if you need to put in more effort to meet the targets.

In essence, you need to set targets for the following items:

  1. How much does your team need to raise per day?
  2. How much does each person in your team need to raise?
  3. How many sponsors do you need find?

1.  How much funds does your team need to raise per day?

Here is how to calculate it:
(1) Total amount that you need to raise

(2) Total number of days you have left

(3) Find the amount you need to raise daily by dividing (1) and (2)

For example, your team is targeting to raise RM10,000 and have not raised any amount yet. 10 days have passed since your campaign was launched and you have 20 days left. Divide RM10,000 by 20 days.

The answer – in this case is RM500 – is the amount you need to target each day.

2. How much does each team member need to raise on average per day?

This is how to calculate it:

(1) The amount that you need to raise per day (refer to the section before this)

(2) Total number of teammates available

(3) Divide (1) by (2)

Continuing from the previous example, we already know that you need to target RM500 each day.

Imagine you have 5 people in the team. Divide RM500 by the 5 teammates.

You’ll find out that each day, each of the five teammates need to bring in RM100 of sponsorships per day (RM100 per teammate per day) on average.

After figuring this out, you need to estimate the number of sponsors you need to find.

3. How many sponsors do you need to find?

If you follow Skolafund’s social media, we always call for people to sponsor RM10 to campaigns.

Why?

Because RM10 is an easy amount to give – it’s not too big, and it’s not too small. It motivates people to take the next action, which is to open the campaign page and get more information about the campaign and eventually, sponsor.

Even though we call for RM10 contributions, people would normally give more. The average sponsorship on Skolafund is RM130 per sponsor, jfyi.

You should do the same – call for RM10 contributions and take the assumption that each person will give RM10.

Based on this assumption, you can calculate how many sponsors you need.

If you need to raise RM10,000, you need to attract 1000 sponsors (RM10,000/RM10) in the 30 days.

If each team member needs to target RM100 per day, each team member will need to find 10 sponsors that can pledge RM10 each!

Once you have figured these three targets, present it clearly for each of the team member to see and refer:

Total Target Total Teammates Total Days Remaining
RM10,000 5 20 days
Target per day Target Per Teammate Per Day
RM500 RM100
Total Sponsors Needed Sponsors Per Day Sponsors per Teammate Daily
1000 50 10 

Keeping Track of the Targets

The leader needs to keep track of the targets at all time. It is also the leader’s duty to remind the team each day of the daily target.

It is also important to update the team frequently on the progress (whether your team is meeting targets or not). The exact frequency of these updates, you may decide it with your team. It may be daily, or once every two or three days, as long as the update is consistent.

You should use this template to update your team:

Day XX

<current amount raised> out of <full target>

<Remaining amount to be raised> to go

to be raised in <no. days left> days.

We need to find xxx more people to pledge RM10!

For example:

Day 10.

We have raised RM100 out of RM10,000.
RM9,900 to go, to be raised in 20 days.

We need to find just 990 people to pledge RM10.

This kind of updates keeps everyone updated on the progress and motivates team members to play their part.

Breaking down the targets to small achievable goals (targetting RM10 per sponsor), makes things look easy and keeps everyone optimistic.

As mentioned above, it is the role of the campaign leader to keep everyone updated and motivated to play their part.

Now that you have targets, how do you find sponsors?

Find sponsors via social media.

In brief, everyone in the team should post on social media daily.

The posts should target your close family and friends first before anyone else. Especially if you have not raised the first 20%.

No strangers will want to fund your campaign if they see your campaign has not receive substantial support. They will question the legitimacy and wonder, “if this campaign is good, how come the campaigners close friends and families have not supported it first?”

That is just logic.

We will be sharing more on how to effectively utilise social media in detail the next article.

For now, execute this first.

 

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