Supporting social ventures to crowdfund and what the RSA

have learned
3
rd
June, 09.00-11.00
Attendees:
Social venture incubators
Crowdfunding platforms
Researchers, intermediaries
Objectives:
Social venture incubators better understand benefits and costs of helping social ventures to
crowdfund and how to go about it
Crowdfunding platforms better understand how you can work with institutions to mobilise their
ideas (pipeline) and networks (potential backers) and what institutions might be interested
We get feedback on how to improve and what you think of our proposals to go further
Agenda:
09.00 Introductions from everyone
09.10 Presentation from RSA
09.25 Clarifications
09.30 2-5 minute responses from all attendees
10.30 Facilitated discussion about crowdfunding and support to social entrepreneurs
11.00 Networking
11.30 Ends
1
RSA crowdfunding
progress to date
2
Strategic objectives:
1) Support Fellows to deliver RSAs impact:
The RSA believes everyone should have the freedom and capacity to turn their ideas into reality
The UK will have moved significantly along the path to a circular economy by 2019
Championing a shift in power to people and communities so that they can better meet their social and
economic needs and aspirations
To lead a fair and rigorous approach to developing everyones creative capacities, so that all have the
curiosity and drive to continue learning throughout their lives, and address societys complex challenges
2) Mobilise Fellows in doing that
Operational objectives:
3
Term Definition Measured
Output
Products, services or
facilities that result
from an organisations
or projects activities
Weak Total ideas put in as applications
Medium Attend crowdfunding workshop
Strong Successfully crowdfunded
Estimate of Fellows backing crowdfunding campaigns
Outcome
The changes, benefits,
learning or other
effects that result from
what the project or
organisation makes,
offers or provides
Quant Total turnover of project to date
Ask how useful was crowdfunding in helping you deliver the impact you have
had to date?
How much the Fellow self-identifies as their project contributing to one of the
change aims
Qual Case studies describing (above) quantitative measures
Wider
Impacts
Broader or longer-term effects of
a projects activities (unintended
or negative too)
Retention
Recruitment
Milestones:
4
Task Who
M
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r
A
p
r
M
a
y
J
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n
J
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l
y
A
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S
e
p
Initial SWOT analysis Catalyst Working Group
Get budget and staffing Executive
Form monthly crowdfunding steering group
AW, EW, COO, Head of
Fellowship, Head of
External Affairs, Head of
Fundraising
Define criteria for selecting platform:
- Free to set up partnership
- Minimum 200,000 raised
- Profile
- Training
- Data
- Cost for projects
AW, EW
Detailed pipeline of Fellows ventures AW
Identify and meet with six shortlisted platforms AW
Decide platform
Crowdfunding steering grp
Present at all staff meeting
AW, EW
Internal and external comms plan (for launch)
JC, AW, STu, MM
Catalyst Working Group
Workshops for those preparing campaigns AW, EW
Confirm first cohort of campaigns AW, All
Launch at RSA Event All
For more on our criteria and
process for deciding to go
with Kickstarter please see
www.rsablogs.org.uk/2013/
fellowship/kickstarter/
5
6
Strategic objective 1: support for Fellows and RSA ventures
Progress against core metrics
6-month
target
3-month
achieved
7-month
achieved
Total raised for Fellowship & RSA campaigns 33,750 40,298 127,152
Proportion of successful campaigns 50% 63% 77%
Number of FRSA projects funded (total campaigns) 21 (42) 7 (11) 17 (22)
Number of ARC projects funded (total campaigns) 3 (6) 0 (0) 0 (1)
Number of Events projects funded (total campaigns) 1 (1) 0 (0) 0 (0)
% of time we have 3 live campaigns 89% 84% 55%
% of time we have 1 live campaign 89% 100% 83%
Average number of funders for successful projects 50 123 155
Average donation 25 47 51
Demand among Fellows ventures
Firm expression of interest to run a crowdfunding campaign 106
Of which approved by Catalyst Working Group 70
Of which projected to go up on RSA Crowdfunding 36
Power to Create
Design Enterprise and
Manufacturing
Education
Public Services and
Communities
7
Operational objective 2: get Fellows (and the wider world)
helping Fellows ventures
General interest in RSA crowdfunding
Views of RSA Event on crowdfunding 6,862
Reads of The Big Idea: Crowdfunding at the RSA blog post 971
Total visits to RSA crowdfunding area on Kickstarter 11,226
Fellows interest in RSA crowdfunding
Click-through from RSA crowdfunding email to all RSA Fellows 753
Unique opens from RSA crowdfunding email to all RSA Fellows 7,173
FRSA bit.ly click-throughs to RSA crowdfunding area and projects 3,434
Fellows backing of RSA crowdfunding projects
Percentage of pledges made by Fellows* 23%
Estimate of pledges made by Fellows* 576
Estimate of hours dedicated to provide marketing and communications
advice from Fellows matched via SkillsBank
48
Hours dedicated to help at workshops 61
* Estimate based on random sample of 100 of 2506 backers, which means we can
be 95% confident that the actual answer is between 15% and 31%
442
Click-throughs to
RSA website from
Kickstarter
8
Benefits: case study of funded project
IF: This University Is Free
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1271205777/if-this-university-is-free
9
Benefits: case study of funded project
Sunday Assembly
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/godless-congregations-for-all-the-sunday-
assembly-global-platform/wdgt
10
Benefits: case study of non-funded project
MAKLAB LONDON
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/maklablondon/maklab-london-open-access-
digital-fabrication
11
Costs
Staff
FTE
(for 6 month pilot + 1
month prep)
Catalyst Programme Manager 1/2
Catalyst Programme Intern 1/2
Fellowship Communications Manager 1/10
Online Community Manager 1/5
Each of 7 Regional Programme Managers 1/20 x 7
RSA Event to launch
Decision-making process free
Costs of 6 month pilot (000) 35,000
(for reference target of total raised for Fellowship & RSA campaigns) (33,750)
(for reference total raised for Fellowship & RSA campaigns in 7 months) (127,152)
12
Conclusions: Learnings and efficiencies going forward
1. We know where the best ones are online or have built some top tips
where we couldnt find them
2. More structured planning to try to get more constant flow of launches
3. Expertise from the SkillsBank to deliver much needed marketing and
communications mentoring
4. We changed from half-day workshops to two 90 minute ones
5. Linking crowdfunding to Catalyst grants as a condition: 3 Catalyst awards
have been given subject to crowdfunding, with two of these fundraising
successfully
6. Communicating our offer
13
Conclusions: crowdfunding vs. grants
The message is not that we should take resource out of the grant programme since the grants:
- grants process has provided criteria and decision point for crowdfunding
- help pay for early stages of projects that give crowdfunding campaign credibility
- are the carrot that gets people to come to us in the first place
- are the carrot to gets people to run a crowdfunding campaign (where we pay grant via Kickstarter)
The message is that crowdfunding is far more scalable in delivering key Catalyst objectives of:
- RSA helping to enrich society through ideas and action:
- (ideas) crowdfunding gets RSA and FRSA ideas out to global audience
- (action) crowdfunding get RSA and FRSA projects cash to deliver
- recruitment of Fellows
- retention of Fellows
Ratio cost : going to FRSA ventures
grants (2013/14 and 2014/15) 1 : 0.6
crowdfunding pilot 2013/14 (business case) 1 : 0.9
crowdfunding pilot 2013/14 (delivered) 1 : 3.2
14
Conclusions: should we continue with Kickstarter?
Recommendation: keep reviewing platform
Pros Cons
Largest and most international audience (12%
have backed 5 or more Kickstarter projects)
Kickstarter's all-or-nothing funding model has put
off 2 of 15 crowdfunders
Recent successes (e.g. Kano) and data suggest
Kickstarter are still number 1 and will remain so
Kickstarter's anglophone requirement has
prevented 1 of 15 (ultimately unsuccessful) ready
to go up
Easy-to-use interface for project leaders (3 have
asked for support and all were resolved)
No data on how many Fellows and cant integrate
with Salesforce
Simple payment method for backers (0
complaints from backers)
Not available during UK working hours
Have a direct contact on the Kickstarter team
who manages our curated area
Some projects had to change copy
Kickstarter ran a Kickstarter School at the RSA
attracting 40 participants
There are some who would have fallen foul of
criteria
One project featured in Kickstarter newsletter,
raising 360 from 26 backers (5% of total)
Kickstarter have asked projects to change copy
for the better
15
Quick wins
opportunities for collaboration
16
Social venture incubators
Crowdfunding platforms
Researchers
Can this help the social ventures you have supported?
Do you know which ventures would find this most useful?
Event
Is there a common resource for ventures to look up similar pitches?
Are there any services/resources that you offer that you think can help?
Can we collaborate on any aspects of our support?
Do you know someone who could urgently(!) provide 2 days a week of help?
How are you measuring your impact on the project leaders?
Event
Can you help us find out more about our backers?
Are there any interesting things we havent noticed?
Learning from developments
17
New services
New legislation
Hack Kickstarter online course from Udemy - www.udemy.com/hackkickstarter
Intermediary services being created all the time: 14 technology infrastructure; 22
financial & compliance; 20 due diligence; 17 campaign services; 17 data & analytics; 15
media & education all listed at www.thecrowdcafe.com/the-crowdinvesting-ecosystem/
Social Investment Tax Relief
Equity crowdfunding
Other developments
IndieGoGo received $20m investment to expand
Crowdfunder received 0.5m investment to expand
Big Society Capital who have 600m to build social investment market announce in
strategy that want to explore include how we might support crowdfunding platforms
that channel funding to social organisations
Forthcoming
CrowdShed: launching space, events and rewards crowdfunding in July
Inspiring Impact will be launching its toolkit in June
Where next?
Proposals to go further
18
Proposal to go further 1: equity crowdfunding
Like rewards crowdfunding:
- successful curation of social enterprises on an equity site
- help Fellows and others who trust our brand to become backers
- help projects
Opportunity
What is the proposal?
Offer support and publicity for Fellows looking to run equity crowdfunding campaigns
41%of 20 Catalyst-funded projects
identified as scalable would use this support
71%
of 7 Fellows ventures that have
gone through Big Venture
Challenge would use this support
19
Risk Way to mitigate risk
Legality of encouraging
our Fellows to invest
Learn from Seedcamp, Wayra, Impact Hub Westminster
(September) who are partnering with platforms
Failure rate of businesses
is high
No higher than the failure rate of charities and community
interest companies
Platforms approval rate is
low
Approval rate of ventures from Seedcamp, Wayra is currently
100% - learn from them to have similar selection
Fellows get confused Have a clear communications plan that explains the differences
between rewards crowdfunding and equity/loan
Going further: equity and loan crowdfunding
6 month estimate
benefits
Total raised for Fellowship & RSA campaigns 450,000
Proportion of successful FRSA campaigns 75%
Number of FRSA projects funded (total campaigns) 3(4)
Estimate of number of Fellows to back a successful project 133
costs
Total staff costs 6,000-11,000
Catalyst Programme Manager 1/4 FTE
Advice on communications Free from platform
Legal sign-off Free from platform?? / 5,000
Example business case
20
Proposal to go further 2: animations for crowdfunders
Unique offer drawing on RSA strengths
Would be available to everyone, not just Fellows
Opportunities:
What is the proposal?
We create a free online course to help people make animations about social ventures.
This would link entrepreneurs to illustrators through the relationships we have with the
90 design colleges participating in our Student Design Awards and Fellows who can
help brainstorm scripts/animations. We would then set a workshop structure for these
teams to learning from our Animate and Short series, create an animated marketing video
and reward the best videos by publishing them on our youtube channel (350,000
subscribers)
97%
of 20 Catalyst-funded
and 7 Fellows ventures
identified as scalable would
use this support
21
Risk Way to mitigate risk
Under-estimating capacity
required to make matches
Use freely available online communities (Google+ communities) to
match groups
Social enterprises need video
not animation
Pitch could combine animation and vox-pop
More ventures than illustrators Reach out to more partners to get more illustrators
Quality of many videos might be
poor
Proof of concept shows that a decent video is possible. We would
only publicise videos that are of high-quality
There are already resources to
help people make animations
We are providing a network to help you through those resources,
advice of condensing the information and making it exciting and an
audience for the end product and an audience to promote it to
Proposal to go further 2: animations for crowdfunders
6 month estimate
benefits
Number of FRSA projects given marketing video (total groups starting) 38 (50)
Number of ARC projects given marketing video 5 (5)
Number of other social ventures given marketing video 50 (100)
costs
Total costs 21,500
Catalyst Programme Manager 1/2 FTE
Consultant specialising in building toolkits 5 days
Consultancy of Andrew Park, creator of RSA Animates 2 days
Example business case
22
Proposal to go further 3: research into pensions
23
Risk Way to mitigate risk
The problem is that pensions
arent required to divulge
where they invest
Pull together similar set of stakeholders that delivered
collective pensions and try to build a pension product that
includes technology similar to that seen in crowdfunding to
a) show investors where their money is and b) allow them to
ask their pension fund to move that money
What is the proposal?
The RSA has delivered a series of research into the pension industry recommend that the UK follow Holland in
offering collective pensions requiring less fees/administration to give the pension-holder more
(http://www.thersa.org/action-research-centre/enterprise-and-design/enterprise/industry/tomorrows-investors)
which has resulted in policy change (http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/jun/01/government-plans-dutch-
style-collective-pension-scheme). Drawing on this, we could research how crowdfunding technology might be
deployed to give pension-holders quick and simple access to information about where their pension is invested.
Thanks + do send thoughts on
Quick wins
24
Social venture incubators
Crowdfunding platforms
Researchers
Can this help the social ventures you have supported?
Do you know which ventures would find this most useful?
Event
Is there a common resource for ventures to look up similar pitches?
Are there any services/resources that you offer that you think can help?
Can we collaborate on any aspects of our support?
How are you measuring your impact on the project leaders?
Event
Can you help us find out more about our backers?
Are there any interesting things we havent noticed?
Proposals
Equity
Animation
Pensions
Alex Watson, Catalyst Programme Manager alex.watson@rsa.org.uk Contact