The Creatives Grants
£5,000 to be awarded on February 23rd, 2012.
A funding grant pot of £5000 to be won. No strings. No repayments. Just great ideas.
1st Place - 1 winner will receive a £1,500 pledge for their project
2nd Place - 1 winner will receive a £750 pledge for their project
3rd Place - 1 winner will receive a £500 pledge for their project
4th Place - 9 winners will receive a £250 pledge for their projects
Don’t worry, we don’t want a pledge reward – we just want to support great ideas!
WHAT IS IT?
- On the 23rd of February 2012 PleaseFund.Us will award 12 project grants.
- Any project looking for crowdfunding and listed on the PleaseFund.Us platform before the closing date is eligible – read on for more details.
- Only projects submitted through the PleaseFund.Us website are eligible.
- First place grant is £1500 with other grants awarded.
WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO DO?
- Become a member of the UK’s biggest crowdfunding platform (using PleaseFund.Us is absolutely free!).
- Submit a project that is live at the time of the award.
- Update your Member's Profile with a profile picture and up to date information about yourself.
WHO IS GOING TO WIN THE PRIZES?
We know how time consuming it can be applying for grants. That is why we, at PleaseFund.Us are making it as easy and simple for YOU to WIN one of the grants.
The grant winners will be
- Someone creative, just like you!
- Someone that has a brilliant project.
- Someone that gets the crowd behind them.
- Someone that is passionate about what they do.
- Someone that is dedicated to achieving his or her goals.
HOW ARE THE AWARDS BEING JUDGED?
The grants will be awarded based on
- How many people have pledged towards your campaign (not the amount funded).
- How many times your campaign has been shared on facebook.
- How many tweets your campaign has had on twitter.
- How consistently your campaign has been promoted over the duration of the campaign.
- How the PleaseFund.Us community has reacted to your project.
WHO WILL NOT WIN THESE GRANTS?
To make sure the grants are awarded to fantastic projects, we have come up with a tiny list of conditions that your listed project must meet in order to qualify for a grant. Note: if you are passionate and dedicated, we know you will meet the following conditions very easily – just have a quick browse through the list below to make sure you don’t slip through the net.
Your project will not be eligible if on the 23rd of February your project has:
- Less than 20 backers on the PleaseFund.Us platform
- Less than 100 facebook shares directly from the project’s page.
- Less than 50 tweets directly from the project’s page.
In addition to the above minimum entry conditions for the grants award process we have outlined the following key points to help clarify a few factors that will drastically reduce your chances of winning a PleaseFund.Us grant:
- If your project has been uploaded right before the deadline, you are unlikely to be awarded a grant.
- If you only start promoting your campaign in the week leading up to the awards, you are unlikely to be awarded a grant.
- If you don't have a project live on the 23rd of February, you will definitely not win a grant on the 23rd of February from PleaseFund.Us.
WHO ARE THE JUDGES?
- The PleaseFund.Us judging panel (see below for PleaseFund.Us judging panel).
- The PleaseFund.Us users.
- The PleaseFund.Us twitter followers.
- The PleaseFund.Us facebook followers.
WHY ARE PLEASEFUND.US OFFERING GRANTS ON A CROWDFUNDING PLATFORM?
We have applied for grants before and frankly the system employed by most grant giving bodies leaves a lot to be desired. We thought that we would make the whole system a lot more transparent by awarding grants based on how effectively a project owner is trying to raise money on our platform. The judging rules are based on what would make a great crowdfunding campaign. This means that we are looking at projects that have an amazing pitch video, great pledge rewards and importantly we are going to be rewarding project owners that really promote their fundraising campaigns. It is not enough just to list your project on a crowdfunding campaign, a project owner needs to put a huge amount of effort into pushing friends, family, fans and any other interested party into parting with hard earned cash to support their project.
Our approach is to make the grant giving process as transparent as possible. If we think that a project owner is doing a fantastic job in the lead up to the awards, we will tweet about how fantastically they are doing. If we think there are things that you could improve in your campaign, expect an e-mail from us. Gone are the days that you receive a dull e-mail saying "Due to the extraordinarily high standard of applications we have received this year, we are sorry to announce that you have not been chosen for our level x grant awards 2012." Now you can check up on the other projects, see what they are doing well and learn from each other.
With this in mind, we have put up a few criteria that we are going to be looking at, this way, you the users can see who is likely to be winning these awards. It is pretty simple, if your project has got over a thousand facebook shares in 30 days, you are going to be in the mixer. If you submit your project at the last minute our judging panel will overlook your project. Raising money is no easy matter and we want to reward hard work and creative talent, both in equal spades.
Watch out - on the 23rd February 2012, we will be putting the awards through the platform in to the successful campaigns accounts. We won't ask for any pledge rewards, we simply want to help brilliant ideas get crowdfunded! If you have any technical issues drop us an e-mail: hi@pleasefund.us
THE JUDGING PANEL
Nina Prosser - National Programme Manager, Enterprise (The Princes Trust)
Shaun Walsh - Deputy Director, Communications & Marketing (The Big Lottery Fund)
Matthew Stafford - Project Leader, technology start-ups, equity investment, debt finance, corporate strategy and business development (Pembridge Partnership Limited)
DON’T LEAVE IT TO THE LAST MINUTE!
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