Crowdfunding for Social Good: Financing Your Mark on the World
by Devin D. Thorpe
Over the last year of writing my Forbes blog, I have had the opportunity to really dig deeply into the world of crowdfunding. I’ve just completed my first draft of my new book, Crowdfunding for Social Good: Financing Your Mark on the World.
The book is a guide to successful crowdfunding for people who want to change the world.
The book is not a sequel to my book, Your Mark On The World, but it is written in the same spirit. I’ve studied a dozens of successful crowdfunding campaigns, interviewing the people behind them to learn their secrets for success.
Devin’s Book, Your Mark on the World, was downloaded over 75,000 times and reached the #19 spot on Amazon’s free book list–among all free books. It remains on the top 50 free nonfiction books at Amazon.
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By Devin Thorpe
Four Phases Of Crowdfunding
There are four basic phases to a successful crowdfunding campaign.
1. Reconnaissance: In this phase you need to assess your personal network, your team, your cause or purpose, and the platforms you’ll use for your campaign. By being thoughtful about how you’ll approach the campaign, you can avoid the mistake of reaching for more than you can grasp. There is no magical crowd that supports every campaign; instead, every campaign builds its own crowd from a network of friends, family and fans.
2. Preparation: Long before you flip the switch on a crowdfunding campaign, you have to carefully plan and prepare for the launch. During the campaign, the pressure can be intense and time seems perpetually short. Before it starts, with the optimism of a sure success before you, the positive energy will help you to draft tweets, blog posts, Facebook posts, press releases and even to create a moving video.
3. Ground Attack: With crowdfunding, your ground attack comes before the air war. You have to personally reach out to friends, family and potential supporters one at a time via email, telephone or face-to-face. Your goal should be to line up 50 percent of your ultimate goal before you turn your campaign live. It will be difficult to raise your entire goal if you don’t have about one-third of the money raised on the first day. Remember, too, that some of those who commit to fund will simply forget or choose not to do it in the end so you’ll need commitments for half of your goal to get one-third.
4. Air War: The air war is what you think of when you think about crowdfunding: posting notes on Twitter and Facebook and blogging about your campaign. This is a vital step and the primary way to get your message past your inner circle to those at the periphery of your network and beyond. One key to going truly viral: traditional media. If you want to reach beyond your community, you have to get bloggers and reporters writing and talking about your campaign. Be sure to give them something to talk about!
Yes, a successful crowdfunding campaign is a lot of work, but it allows you to access capital that simply would not have been available to you in any other way before.
About Devin:
Devin D. Thorpe thinks he is the luckiest person alive. After being “let go” from the best job he’d ever had—as the Chief Financial Officer of the multinational food and beverage company MonaVie—he and his wife ended up living in China for a year where he wrote Your Mark On The World and embarked on the career he’d always wanted yet hadn’t dared dream.
Now, as an author, a popular guest speaker and Forbes contributor, Devin is devoted full time to championing social good. His current life isn’t much like his past.
As an entrepreneur, Devin ran—at separate times—a boutique investment banking firm and a small mortgage company. He served as the Treasurer for the multinational vitamin manufacturer USANA Health Sciences years before becoming CFO for MonaVie. Over his career he led or advised on the successful completion of $500 million in transactions.
Devin squeezed in two brief stints in government, including two years working for Jake Garn on the U.S. Senate Banking Committee Staff and another year working for an independent state agency called USTAR, where he helped foster technology entrepreneurship during Governor Jon Huntsman’s administration.
Devin is proud to have graduated from the University of Utah David Eccles School of Business, which recognized him as a Distinguished Alum in 2006. He also earned an MBA at Cornell University where he ran the student newspaper, Cornell Business.
Today, Devin channels the idealism of his youth with the loving support of his wife, Gail. Their son Dayton is a PhD candidate in Physics at UC Berkeley (and Devin rarely misses an opportunity to mention that).
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