If you need just money, go to the bank and don't use crowdfunding. Use crowdfunding if you need awareness building, campaigning, initiating debate, attract other funders and build up your community. When we started our first campaign for an energy independent school in Croatia, we didn't have the slightest idea where crowdfunding would take us. From conducting a successful campaign to setting up Crowdfunding Academy and UNDP Alternative Finance Lab , helping to launch more than 15 campaigns in 10+ countries - crowdfunding has definitely taken a hold on us. In the UK alone, crowdfunding for civic causes has gained $30 million over the last five years . But crowdfunding is so much more than about getting the required financing for your projec...

​ Seems like the last few months have gone away in a blink of an eye – that's how long it passed since a group of seven started to plan the Crowdfunding Academy project at small UNDP office in Croatia. Many e-mails, social media posts, new faces, public presentations, crowdfunding facts and working hours later, we are starting to realize the real size of a rock that we've managed to move by successfully bringing this project to life. Within the Crowdfunding Academy educational programme we gathered experts in business, financing, marketing, social media, journalism, strategy planning and many other fields, along with more or less successful crowdfunding campaigners from Croatia. They've shared their experiences through three modules tacklin...

Enter your text  Nothing could beat the pleasure of starring at a packed auditorium while I was waiting for the opening talk of the Zagreb Crowdfunding Convention and thinking back of the months of preparations behind us. Industry experts, NGO's and private companies, government representative and numerous curious individuals – we got them all at one place to discuss future of crowdfunding in our region! We've been intensively focusing our work on a variety of crowdfunding activities in order to climb closer to the goal we've set more than one year ago, when we co-founded the Crowdfunding Academy . That was to contribute to the development of a crowdfunding market in Croatia. Our Zagreb Crowdfunding Convention event nowadays comes as a...

Bangladesh is a country with a population of over 160 million people, and millions of youth not in education, employed, or in training. On the other side, the need for good jobs in Bangladesh is high. The Youth Employment through Skills (YES) initiative came up with the solution for this huge problem. YES is an educational programme that works with Bangladeshi youth to teach them basic coding skills. Students participate in a 6-month training course, which is led by a skilled coding instructor. They learn how to use computers, perform basic coding, and market themselves on freelancing web portals. ​ YES launched the crowdfunding campaign in November 2016 and, together with their partNers (Standard Chartered, Coders Trust, bKash, Better Shel...

Guzgef Solar School project aimed at improving education facilities in rural Tajikistan and provide a better education for children. Almost 70% of the population of Tajikistan live in rural and mountainous areas where electricity is available for no more than three hours a day. The country's lack of consistent grid power means that it is too dark and cold to study in the school during the winter months. As a result, students miss many days of school, making it difficult for them to receive a good education and graduate. At the same time, the country enjoys 280-330 sunny days a year, so the team behind this project created a plan to help resolve the problem of the energy crisis and provide an opportunity to use renewable energy solutions. ​ ...

Elderly centre in Balykchy town in Kyrgyzstan was set up by a local non-governmental organisation to provide a gathering place for retired and elderly people who don't have relatives or access to a social network. But, with temperatures dipping way below zero, the centre is largely inaccessible during late fall and winter season due to the poor heating system. This created a break in an otherwise dynamic routine, keeping its visitors contained to their own homes, alone during the colder months of the year. The team behind this project wanted to change that, so they launched a crowdfunding campaign in March 2016 to make the elderly centre energy efficient. With the support of many backers, the UNDP Catalytic and Scaling-up Facility for Europ...

Crowdfunding Academy Croatia is a non-formal educational programme on developing crowdfunding campaigns aimed for training cooperatives, municipalities and cities, start-up companies, entrepreneurs, craftsmen and all citizens with interesting and innovative projects. The second Crowdfunding Academy took place in summer of 2016 in Zagreb, Croatia with 19 participating teams. All of our teams had great, creative and sustainable ideas such as healthy meals projects, mental health campaign, and campaign for opening the first coffee shop in Croatia to employ people with Down syndrome.The educational program was carried out through four modules. ​ During the first workshop team members were introduced to the basics of a crowdfunding campaign, the...

​''Bring Water for Life'' was UNDP Indonesia's first crowdfunding campaign. This initiative is contributing to the achievement of the 17 globally committed Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), particularly in increasing access to clean water and sanitation, to end poverty, fight inequality and climate action. The campaign was launched on World Water day on March 22nd, 2016 and was aimed at gathering public support for providing clean water access for Napu, a remote village in East Sumba district, by building a solar-powered water pump system Through collective efforts, the partnership with NGO Koppesda (based in East Sumba with supervision from UNDP) and with the support of 400 backers, $ 27,958 funds was raised through this campaign. The f...

Mateja Kuhar couldn't stop thinking about the idea of developing a pen from recycled organic waste for more than two years. After she noticed how much organic material was being binned by a local coffee shop and flower shops, she finally shaped the idea of ??making Fabula – organic pencil. This pencil is created from the used tea leaves and coffee grounds from cafes, together with petals discarded by the many florists. When it gets too short to use, the Fabula stub can be activated in water to plant a young Goji berry, golden in berry or a paulownia tree. In December 2015 Mateja and her team launched the crowdfunding campaign so that she could finish and perfect the unique machine used in the manufacturing process.With the support of 270 ba...

She is in her 30-ies, borderless, decentralised and the Master-Mind of "Governance 2.0", the BitNation. Her name is Susanne Tarkowski Tempelhof and she shook the minds of #UNDPCrowd yesterday, as the Sun set down over Bosporus and the room was getting hot, powered by each person emitting 100 Watts worth of heat. 100×70=7kW heat. It is so hot I can't think. What the hack is BitNation? I'll quote them as that is the zest of their existence: „ BitNation does not care where in the world you are from, where you live, or what passport you hold. Everyone has the right to enjoy high-end, competitive governance services." And that is the point behind a gal who left school when she was fifteen and is self-thought since. She did quite well with self-e...

Last week the Crowdfunding Academy team felt like Charlie in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory – except there was no chocolate river or a lickable wallpaper. If we don't count that rainbow hallway on the way to a rainbow metro station, it wasn't even psychedelic looking. But taking into consideration that we love good ideas as much as Charlie loves chocolate – you will understand this comparison. As we've mentioned in few of our earlier blogs – Crowdfunding Academy went global. Over the last two months we've been intensively working with UNDP offices around the world on preparation of their crowdfunding campaigns. Keeping in mind that crowdfunding might not be the only alternative financing option suitable for their projects, we've been explo...

Global Crowdfunding Academy is a program aimed at training UNDP staff to learn to conduct their own crowdfunding campaigns and thus contribute to 2030 Agenda and its goals. UNDP's 1st Global Crowdfunding Academy took place in December of 2015 in Istanbul. Inspiring projects that ranged from community green solutions to peacebuilding and poverty reduction were presented by 11 teams from around the world. ​ Global Crowdfunding Academies are envisaged as 3-6 month service where the team identifies a pipeline of potential ideas, develops ideas into crowdfunding campaign and provides hands-on support during the campaign. The team is moving into the area of setting regional support centers with the best candidates by providing education, training...

She is in her 30-ies, borderless, decentralised and the Master-Mind of "Governance 2.0", the BitNation. Her name is Susanne Tarkowski Tempelhof and she shook the minds of #UNDPCrowd yesterday, as the Sun set down over Bosporus and the room was getting hot, powered by each person emitting 100 Watts worth of heat. 100×70=7kW heat. It is so hot I can't think. What the hack is BitNation? I'll quote them as that is the zest of their existence: „ BitNation does not care where in the world you are from, where you live, or what passport you hold. Everyone has the right to enjoy high-end, competitive governance services." And that is the point behind a gal who left school when she was fifteen and is self-thought since. She did quite well with self-e...

​''STEMI'' is a robot you can make on your own at home. He can teach you much scientific, technological, engineering and mathematical concepts in a fun and easy way. By building STEMI you can learn 3D modelling, electronics, Arduino programming and mobile app programming. STEMI came as a spin-off of a non-profit organisation "Wind of Knowledge". It is an educational technology company that aims to improve the society by making learning a more enjoyable experience. This crowdfunding campaign was launched in December 2015, and with help of 280 backers and over 30 partners, STEMI raised $ 36,816 (although the initial objective was twice smaller). But the team behind the project did not stop there. The successful campaign enabled them a collabo...

For those who haven't read the first part here is a little introduction. We are travelling around the world and meeting teams and projects of Global Crowdfunding Academy. All of them wish to make a change in their community. So, at the beginning of December we will gather in Istanbul and start working on realizing those dreams. Last time we visited Macedonia, Columbia, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Tajikistan. Now there are six more countries ahead of us. So let's continue our little adventure!   Today our journey starts is in Zimbabwe . Project name: Young small-holder farmers Insurance and Risk Transfer Facility . Young small holder farmers are increasingly affected by extreme weather events and the adverse effects of climate change. To ...

For those who haven't read the first part here is a little introduction. We are travelling around the world and meeting teams and projects of Global Crowdfunding Academy. All of them wish to make a change in their community. So, at the beginning of December we will gather in Istanbul and start working on realizing those dreams. Last time we visited Macedonia, Columbia, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Tajikistan. Now there are six more countries ahead of us. So let's continue our little adventure!   Today our journey starts is in Zimbabwe . Project name: Young small-holder farmers Insurance and Risk Transfer Facility . Young small holder farmers are increasingly affected by extreme weather events and the adverse effects of climate change. To ...

​ From equity-based crowfunding and person-to-person lending, to crypto currencies and mobile money; entirely new players are disrupting the field of financing for development and public policy. So, what does this alternative finance space look like? Who are the new players and what are they up to? Crowd-power According to the World Bank, the crowdfunding market is expected to grow to US $100 billion by 2025. Recent research shows that – despite living in countries where the cost of doing business is quite high – entrepreneurs are successfully raising money by crowdfunding, and bypassing loads of red tape in the process. (Image via Allied Crowds) And it's not just money. New platforms are springing up focusing on everything from expertise a...

The first Global Crowdfunding Academy organized for and by the UNDP offices around the world had a really strong competition. After a tough selection process, we have chosen 11 teams with most inspiring projects from community green solutions to peacebuilding and poverty reduction. Interested? Let's go on a little odyssey around the world, meet the teams and see what they want to change in their community with the help of crowdfunding. First station: Republic of Macedonia . Project name: Let's paint Skopje from 50 shades of GREY to 50 shades of GREEN. The main idea of this project is to pick out one prominent building in Skopje, turn it from grey to green and set an example for others to follow. The proposed building is the Skopje City Hosp...

​ Seems like the last few months have gone away in a blink of an eye – that's how long it passed since a group of seven started to plan the Crowdfunding Academy project at small UNDP office in Croatia. Many e-mails, social media posts, new faces, public presentations, crowdfunding facts and working hours later, we are starting to realize the real size of a rock that we've managed to move by successfully bringing this project to life. Within the Crowdfunding Academy educational programme we gathered experts in business, financing, marketing, social media, journalism, strategy planning and many other fields, along with more or less successful crowdfunding campaigners from Croatia. They've shared their experiences through three modules tacklin...

Taste of Home is a culinary-cultural-research project that introduces the culture, customs and countries of origin of refugees and migrants in Croatia. Taste of Home initiative wanted to help refugees and migrants earn a living and become settled in Croatia. The crowdfunding campaign was launched in November 2015. With the help of over 500 backers, they have raised $ 19,649 and enabled financing for the kitchen space, and purchase of kitchen appliances (like refrigerators, cookers, blenders, pots, pans - basically everything that is necessary for cooking and starting a catering business). Since the campaign's initial goal ($ 17,000) was exceeded, this initiative successfully established social cooperative run by refugees, migrants, and Croa...