Vinspired creates crowdfunding platform for young people’s community projects
Howard Lake | 8 January 2013 | News
Vinspired, the national charity that provides opportunities for young people to do good things, has launched a crowdfunding platform to help young people achieve their own social action projects.
Igniter lets young people seek funding for their ideas and activities from members of the public.
Damien Austin-Walker, Head of Digital at vInspired, explained: “We already know that there’s an appetite among young people to run their own projects but a lack of suitable funding opportunities. We have created Igniter to test if the public want to help fund projects.”
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The charity already knew from its online support platform, Junction49, that young people were committed to making a difference but that they needed funding and support to help achieve this.
Within the site’s first 24 hours one project had managed to achieve its target, albeit a modest one. Current projects listed on the site include work in the areas of mental health, mentoring, social enterprise, and empowerment of young women.
Support young social entrepreneurs to get their ideas off the ground from as little as £1 – igniter.vinspired.com #Igniter
— vinspired (@vinspired) January 8, 2013
People who make pledges receive badges for certain amounts, for being the first to back or project, or for making the donation that enables the project to reach its target. As with most other crowdfunding sites, pledges are only collected if the project hits its financial target within the set period.
The site is currently operating as a minimum viable product (MVP) while the charity tests donors’ appetite to fund such projects.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.