Crowdfund Lancashire: Launch your project now ahead of February deadline
Individuals who want to make a positive impact to their communities are being encouraged to bring their ideas to life through Crowdfund Lancashire.
Through the £500,000 Lancashire Culture & Sport Fund, Crowdfund Lancashire allows the county council to support grassroot culture and sports projects through crowdfunding.
Crowdfund Lancashire is developed by Lancashire County Council, working in partnership with Spacehive, the UK’s leading community fundraising platform.
Creating a crowdfunding campaign is simple and we can support you throughout the process. Once launched, it's your job to promote the project. As an individual, if you manage to raise 50% of your funding target, we'll pledge up to £1,500, which we'll honour if the full funding target is met.
For 2024, we have introduced a separate step-by-step process specifically for individuals to make the application even easier.
Anyone who wants to launch a crowdfunding campaign have until 14th February 2024.
During a previous application round, Martyn Rawlinson raised £2,147 for his Best of Preston project, which is a series of summer events held under the Victorian Preston Market canopies each showcasing singer/songwriters and spoken word artists from the greater Preston area.
Martyn said: "Crowdfund Lancashire was an ideal opportunity to gauge interest in the community for the project.
"The success of the project now means we can consider developing the idea further for future years, making it bigger and better and even more beneficial to participants and the community."
Elsewhere, Lara Momesso raised £2,548 for her Voices of Lancashire podcast project, which will consist of 12 interviews from 12 immigrants from each of Lancashire's 12 districts.
Before launching her campaign, Lara attended one of the Crowdfund Lancashire workshops organised by the county council in conjunction with Spacehive.
"Talking to other participants, I was fascinated by the diversity of their ideas and projects, all shaped by their personal interests and passions," Lara, who is from Italy, said.
"So, I thought how I could contribute to this diversity with my background and interests? Once I asked this question, the answer was easy: as an immigrant myself and with a bit of experience with podcasting, I decided to create a podcast series featuring migrant stories.
"I decided to crowdfund my project with Crowdfund Lancashire because I attended the first meeting and got inspired by the overall discussion that emerged in that context.
"Crowdfund Lancashire allowed me to turn an idea into a real project that is meaningful not only to myself but also to the local community and other immigrants in Lancashire and beyond."
County Councillor Peter Buckley, Lancashire County Council's cabinet member for Community and Cultural Services, said: "Crowdfund Lancashire is already making a positive impact to our communities and we want to continue this momentum throughout 2024.
"We're really keen for more individuals to come forward and that's why we've launched a separate process for individuals to make the application simpler.
"The scope of the fund is to support cultural activity including art, music, literature, poetry, heritage, dance, theatre, craft, photography, film, design, museums, archives, and community arts festivals; and sporting activity including community-based sports clubs, outdoor pursuits, competitions and events, walking and gentle exercise, health and wellbeing.
"We can help you through the entire process so if you have a great culture or sport idea, we want to hear from you."
The deadline to launch crowdfunding campaign on Spacehive for this round of funding is 14th February 2024.
To find out more visit: Crowdfund Lancashire - Lancashire Culture and Sport Fund - Lancashire County Council