Research, selection and procurement
Two primary civic crowdfunding platforms are operating in the UK. Crowdfunder and Spacehive. Both models are available on the G-Cloud Framework.
| Crowdfunder Connect | Spacehive |
|---|---|
| Established 2013 | Established 2012 |
| £300+million raised by projects | Over £32million raised for communitiesfor communities across the UK & Ireland. |
| 40 corporate partners, 8 of which are local authorities. Plymouth City Council is a crowdfunder partner and CCIN member | Network of 40+ local government partners including combined authorities, county councils and borough and district councils. CCIN members working with Spacehive include Birmingham, Cheshire West and Chester, Kirklees and Sunderland |
| Over 100,000 projects to date, with over 3 million individual donations | Nearly 3,000 projects to date |
| View More | |
| Projects can be set up as either ‘keep what you earn’ or to only trigger payment once the target is met. | 85% crowdfunding success, rising to 94% when a local authority partner pledges. |
| Over £10 million in match funding grants available via +Extra funding. New projects are matched with eligible funds, which may be local authority funds or national funds such as the Aviva Community Fund, BA Better World and Sports England Match Funding | £6million partner funding available |
| Amplified budget – Approximately 30% council funding pot, 30% platform and 30% match funding e.g. | Local authority partners can secure a 3:1 return on their investment in projects. This amounts to 400% amplification of grant funding, ensuring funding can stretch to more projects and deliver greater social impact. |
| Fees: No platform fee to the public for not for profit projects, other than on community share offers. Transaction fee of 1.9% + 20p (per pledge) + VAT on UK/EU cards. Contributors are also invited to make a voluntary ‘tip’ to Crowdfunder. Organisations distributing funds through the platform (eg Councils) pay a 3% fee on payments. | Fees: It is free to create an account, set up a project page, and start crowdfunding on Spacehive. Spacehive mission is to make it easy for people to improve their local area and our project fees model helps us to deliver this and continue providing the tools and resources needed to make positive change happen across the UK and Ireland. Spacehive is transparent with its fee model and unlike other crowdfunding platforms there are no hidden extras or automated tipping. The platform fee is 7.5% (+VAT) of a project target, which is automatically added to a campaign target before fundraising begins. This means that all fees are built into a crowdfunding target from the outset. If project creators do not hit their targets and decide to Keep What You Raise, then the fee will apply to the amount you raised in crowdfunding. Transaction fees, charged by our payment partner Stripe, are approximately 2.9% of the payment value and are separate to the platform fee. |
| As part of Spacehive local authority partnership, project creators receive access to Spacehive 101 – Spacehive. The Help Centre is packed full of articles, step-by-step guides and resources designed to help project creators at every step of their crowdfunding campaigns. Spacehive’s 'Project Success' Team is also on hand to help project creators put Help Centre resources into practice via email, phone and Live Chat. | |
