Crowdfunding for Social Impact Projects
1 July 2015 at 10:23 am
A crowdfunding initiative by StartSomeGood, the School for Social Entrepreneurs and ING DIRECT has raised over $137,000 for social impact projects in just three weeks.
The crowdfunded projects through Dreamstarter included an ethical fashion store and an artisan bakery both training people from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds; a mobile shower service for people sleeping rough, a business college helping to service accounting needs for Not for Profits and addressing youth unemployment on the Central Coast of NSW and a Fair Trade café in Brisbane.
One Voice’s Mobile Shower Service was the most successful individual Dreamstarter campaign to date, crowdfunding over $45,000.
“We already have one mobile shower service running in Melbourne. The success of our Dreamstarter campaign will enable us to fit-out another bus with two shower cubicles in the rear and a health consulting space at the front. Once fitted out, we hope to launch the Mobile Shower Service in Sydney,” Founder of One Voice, Josh Wilkins said.
Jackie Ruddock of The Social Outfit said: “Dreamstarter has been a great success for us; it means so much to us to exceed our target and raise over $11,500. The support of ING DIRECT has introduced a new audience to our work. We can't wait to keep growing our impact, sharing more creative talent from Sydney's refugee and new migrant communities.”
Launched in 2013,Dreamstarter is an online platform presented in partnership with StartSomeGood and the School for Social Entrepreneurs and uses crowdfunding to provide seed funding to candidates to get their ideas for social impact projects off the ground. ING DIRECT pledges up to 50 per cent of a project’s ‘tipping point’ with the rest raised by the community.
“Dreamstarter gives ING DIRECT the opportunity to join with our customers and the wider community to help get some of Australia’s most inspired social impact projects off the ground,” Head of Corporate Affairs at ING DIRECT, David Breen said.
“Our June round was our most successful yet. More money was raised than ever before and all live projects achieved their crowdfunding goal and are now one step closer to creating positive social impact in our community.”
Key Dreamstarter results:
- June round: Seven projects raised $137,726 from over 363 people. ING DIRECT pledged $43,700 with the rest raised from customers and the wider community
- Since 2013, Dreamstarter has raised almost $1/2 million for 38 social impact projects in Australia tackling issues ranging from health, education, social welfare and the environment.
