Nature Seychelles CEO Dr Nirmal Shah and ClimateCaring founder Kim Kirkpatrick drawing the winner for the indiegogo campaign
Nature Seychelles
Crowd funding for financing a renewable energy system
The project was funded entirely through a crowd funding campaign running for 50 days on www.indiegogo.com. This fund raising campaign was initiated by Nature Seychelles in partnership with ClimateCaring.. Individuals were invited to donate £1 (1,25 USD) for each of the twelve hours the sun is out in the Seychelles Islands, finally totaling to a contribution of 15 USD each. There were a total of 95 individual backers. The largest donations of up to 12,500 USD came from a UK energy company and the US Embassy based in Mauritius. Other donations came from private sector companies via their corporate responsibility funds.
- Leadership by Nature Seychelles’ top management
- Support from all levels of the institution
- Ability to raise an online crowdfunding campaign (know-how, technical capacities)
- Know how for marketing and lobbying to inform potential funders
- Online crowdfunding campaigns do have the potential to generate money for financing of certain activities and equipment for conservation.
- The inclusion of the private sector as well as governmental agencies is important. Respective agents may contribute quite substantially in the crowdfunding process from design to funding to implementation.
- Creating incentives for small donations like a personal postcard and the chance to win a trip to the island motivates potential small donors.
- Nevertheless, attracting big donors (companies, bilateral donors and development agencies) to this sort of campaign, which is not commercial in nature and thus not providing returns (in the form of products) to the small donors, is very important.