Traditionally, women have struggled to obtain finance and have suffered unfair treatment based only on their gender. While equality is thankfully now a much more realistic goal, the truth is we are still far from treating everyone the same. In a world where men are still paid more than women for the same job, it’s no surprise that many women dream of running their own business.
However, if women can’t access the cash they need, they can’t even get started. Whether the barriers to getting funds are real or imagined, the problem is most women believe they exist, and therefore may not even try to get the bank loan or grant which could launch their idea. How do we end this vicious cycle? Crowdfunding.
Crowdfunding for Women
Crowdfunding is an innovative new method of funding, and it’s revolutionising finance with a simple core concept – tell everyone about your great idea and ask for money in return for a reward. It’s as easy as that. Well this is great news for everyone of course, but for women in particular because it removes any bias, and allows women the same chance to pitch their ideas.
In fact, at Bloom VC we’ve found our female owned projects are actually much more successful than their male counterparts, and are more comfortable engaging and interacting with their community. (Ed – based on your projects completed so far) Maybe this personal relationship comes more naturally to us girls, after all we are the more touchy feely gender!
Hannah Stansfield is one such example, as she has funded not one but two successful projects with Bloom, Feeding Dahab’s Dogs and The Saddle Pad Project, both of which were for charity, to protect animals in Egypt. Hannah found it difficult to raise money previously, as she had tried donation drives through Facebook and the website, and a PayPal widget, but they didn’t appear to be getting the message across. She says crowdfunding has allowed her to explain her project clearly, and to a much wider audience, which has allowed her to raise more that she thought possible in a short space of time.
Jessica McDermott has recently closed her project successfully – all she needed was £500 to fund her comedy club exhibition ‘You Must Love Working Here’. While she had considered applying for grants through bodies such as creative Scotland, she felt it was risky to sit about waiting for her application to be processed. The great thing about crowdfunding for Jessica, was she was able to clearly see how much she had raised and how long she had left to go.
It’s amazing to see how far some of our project owners have come since their crowdfunding campaign; Polly from Cake Cetera will be delivering her gorgeous cupcake bouquets nationwide in the Spring, and Mhairi from Bonnie Bling was able to go full-time in her acrylic jewellery business after crowdfunding more than £8000. She has also hired part-time employees and enjoyed massive success as celebs such as Olly Murs, Sir Elton John and Tallia Storm have worn her jewellery.
As today is International Women’s Day Bloom VC wanted to celebrate our strong female project owners who are breaking the mould, and encourage more women to join the crowdfunding revolution! With that in mind, we’ve announced a no commission offer for any female owned projects launched on the 8th, and have much more planned to mark this important date. Check out our activity on Facebook and Twitter, and our IWD page.
Are you considering crowdfunding? If you are our website is a great place to start.
We hope you find this information useful.
Best regards,
Marketing Fundamentals Team
This guest post for the Marketing Fundamentals Team was written by Cara Pleym of Bloom VC
Marketing Fundamentals Ltd’s contact details – If you’d like to discuss any aspect of your marketing requirements feel free to give us a call on +44 (0) 845 226247 or drop us an email via mail@marketingfundamentals.com – We look forward to hearing from you.
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