Beth Tilston
Hey Josef - do you know if there are there any crowd funding platforms that are British-based?
24 February at 12:03 · Unlike ·  · See friendship
You like this.
Josef Davies-Coates yes, I know of 3! :)

http://buzzbnk.org/ (nice in that is it focussed on positive projects, but actually much to many keystrokes and clicks required to contribute, so not that good yet - they're working on it...)

http://sponsume.org/ - just relaunched their site so assume not suffering from buzzbnk's problems but can't actually vouch for that. One stand out thing about them is they don't take a cut themselves (although of course paypal do)

http://www.crowdcube.com/ - very interesting in that it somehow (not sure how exactly, been meaning to give the chap a call for a while but not got around to it yet) allows you to actually offer/ get equity in the businesses

They may be more out there too, but those I the ones I can think of right now :)

What you want to crowdfund?
24 February at 19:25 · Like
Josef Davies-Coates I had a quick look at http://delicious.com/tag/crowdfunding+UK and found a few more:

http://wedidthis.org.uk/ - focuses on art, charge a transaction fee but don't say what that is other than "The Organisation will be liable for payment of a Transaction Fee agreed with WeDidThis"

http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/ - from the same people as CrowdCube above, just a different skin at a different url and without the equity bit, take 5% commission

(there are the terms of CrowdCube: £250 listing fee, 5% of the target plus legal fees of £1750 for completion if successful)

(and of buzzbnk: oh, can't find that info on their site, have fed that back to them and asked them...)

http://www.wefund.co.uk/ - for "creative projects", charges the project creator a 5% fee, and each backer a 50 pence transaction fee.

http://www.pledgemusic.com/ - for music, administration fee of 15% for successful projects, but do absorb all card processing fees and overheads in this amount (although they are probably only about 3.5% so its still a hefty fee).
24 February at 20:35 · Like
Josef Davies-Coates For my own reference I also found http://fundingstore.com/ which isn't exactly crowdfunding but potentially useful :)
24 February at 20:39 · Like
Josef Davies-Coates Buzzbnk

- To Register a Project on the Website: £25. Non-refundable

- Ventures: 5% of funds raised. Only charged if the project reaches at least its first milestone and upon disbursement of funds to the Venture.

- Transaction Fees: At time of purchase by user via the Shopping Cart. Non-refundable. A combination of percentage and flat fee depending on card type, currently:
Visa or MasterCard Credit Card: 2.00% of pledge total plus £0.10
Debit Cards: £0.45
26 February at 11:30 · Like
Beth Tilston Ace, thanks! I don't have any particular projects in mind, but I was just seeing what was out there. It annoyed me a bit that the Dark Mountain thing on Indiegogo was in dollars so I wanted to see if there were any British ones. I've been doing a bit of searching around to see if there are any tips on how to run a successful crowdfunding project. There's not much. Someone needs to write 'Crowdfunding for Dummies'.
26 February at 12:20 · Like
Josef Davies-Coates from what I remember Kickstarter and IndieGoGo have lots of useful tips and advice of their sites, but see also this:
http://www.rockethub.com/projects/1068-how-we-ll-fund-21st-century-social-movements

that is nice people I know crowdfunding a crowdfunding handbook! :-)
26 February at 17:32 · Like
Josef Davies-Coates seems to be some other useful stuff out there here too :
http://www.google.com/search?q=crowdfunding+how+to
26 February at 17:37 · Like
Beth Tilston Cool, thanks