In December the workshop “Crowdfunding: how to find money for the project” was held within the framework of the project “The financial sector of the EU as the engine of sustainable development”. In which our experts took part as speakers:

Ksenia Shyshenok is a co-founder of the consulting company Quality Guaranteed, an expert in business planning, a certified appraiser of business and intellectual property.

Egor Shyshenok is a co-founder of the consulting company Quality Guaranteed, the founder of the exchange of investment projects Best.in.ua, the consultant of the start-incubator Sikorsky Challenge, as well as an expert in the development of business plans.

The investment climate in Ukraine is improving very slowly and this is not enough for entrepreneurship. Every day more and more new ideas and start-ups are emerging, which require funding. Crowdfunding is a good way to find an initial investment and test an idea.

Crowdfunding (Crowdfunding) is one way to raise the right amount for the implementation of a project, an event, a film or the necessary treatment.

The mechanism of Crowdfunding is not new, but with the development of the Internet, as well as the growth of social responsibility and the level of people’s non-indifference to various public initiatives, has received a worldwide scale. It turned out that even very large sums for the announced projects can be collected with the help of microfinance, at the expense of ordinary people.

Crowdfunding is a process in which you can participate as an initiator if you have an idea or project, or join a number of investors who are ready to support a good idea and invest money in its implementation. The main asset of the 21st century in the popular funding was Crowdfunding platform. With their help, the collection procedure became much simpler, faster and more democratic, and accounting and monitoring of obligations became more open.

The reasons why Crowdfunding has received such popularity are the following:

1. Accessibility – the Internet and once again the Internet. It is because people use the Internet, its accessibility in any place and at any time, opened the way for the ability to quickly collect money for projects – “with the world on the thread”;
2. Crowdfunding do without the participation of banks, venture funds and exchanges.
3. The society is ready to take part in the implementation of various initiatives and at the same time share its finances;
4. Involvement and personal interest of the person who supports the project.

If world-wide crowds are collecting money for ideas from the world of things, business, know-how or projects in the gaming industry, Ukrainian Crowdfunding has its own characteristics.

Public financing in Ukraine is represented by three platforms: Спільнокошт, Ukrainian Exchange of Charity and Na-Starte.

• Platform – Spilnokosht (biggggidea.com)

The history of biggggidea.com begins in November 2008. Social innovators were founded in Kiev by Irina Solovey and Alexander Suprunets.

The idea to create a platform arose at the height of the global economic crisis. The foundation of such a resource was aimed at uniting a generation that wants to create its own habitat. In the opinion of the initiators, this generation differs from the previous ones in that young professionals believe in themselves, they are aimed at communication, exchange and action.

The site of the Great Idea has become a space for translating the ideas of conscious citizens into socially significant projects in Ukraine. First of all, it was a platform where people shared their ideas on how to change the cultural environment in Ukraine for the better. And in 2012, on the basis of the platform biggggidea.com was launched k Crowdfunding platform Спільнокошт.

Projects that seek funding through Spilno-kosht cover social, cultural and creative spheres.

Number of successful projects – 206

The number of invested funds – 13 186 131 UAH.

Number of philanthropists – 26 232

The number of successful projects from 2017 in Kiev is 81.

Terms and Conditions

1. The author independently determines the amount of funds and the period for which such an amount should be collected;
2. After the publication of the project on the Site, changes can not be made;
3. The maximum publication period is 100 days
4. You can receive funds if you collected the full amount for a certain period;
5. Commission platform – 10%.
6. The author of the project can independently stop the collection of funds if the collected amount exceeds 50 percent of the amount indicated and receive these funds.

• Ukrainian Charity Exchange

UBB is the nationwide social infrastructure of online charity.

On the website of the Ukrainian Exchange of Charity, you can simply and quickly donate funds to one of the active projects. UBB transfers 100% of donations to charitable organizations that implement projects, and provides absolute transparency of costs through project reporting. Only proven organizations that have a good reputation and experience in successfully implementing charitable programs are allowed to participate in ubb.org.ua.

The scheme for the collection of funds – money is accumulated on the account of the UBB. When the necessary amount is collected to implement the project, UBB transfers 100% of the amount of the charitable organization (the costs of UBB’s transactions are compensated at its own expense).

The charitable organization realizes the project and provides a report, which is published on the site ubb.org.ua.

The amount of collected funds – 146 680 714 UAH.

Number of donors – 1 011 330 people.

Special conditions for placing projects:

1. The project can be placed through an accredited social organization (the UBB considers requests for the publication of projects only from assistance operators accredited to the UBB);
2. Only public and charitable projects can be published at the UBB;
3. The project remains active until 100% of the required amount is collected. If within 6 (six) months from the date of publication of the project on the UBB website 100% of the required amount of the project is not collected, the UBB may decide to cease collecting funds for this project.

Project categories:

1. Health
2. Education
3. Culture and Sports
4. Ecology and animals
5. like at home
6. our town

The platform is actively assisted by the media and the media. Works since 2012.

• Na-Starte

Another Crowdfunding platform, which was opened in the winter of 2013-14 – Na-Starte.

Na-Starte differs from the two previous platforms in that it encourages authors of innovative, unusual, in all senses, special projects. “We find financing for the realization of the dreams of those who can not agree with the investor whose project is considered too risky or economically unprofitable,” the founders of Na-Starte say.

The platform team takes care of each element of the presentation of the project together with the author, and also helps to understand the business processes, advertising components, the principles of visual design and so on.

The platform receives 8% of the collected amount only if the project is successfully completed. All money from the project, which is considered unsuccessful, must return to the accounts of depositors.

The coverage of platforms among users is different, the most visited is the Ukrainian Charity Exchange, which is visited by more than 180 thousand people a month.

In order to understand how Crowdfunding works in Ukraine, we asked a couple of questions for Sasha Smetanenko, a partner of the GarageGang (managing company biggggidea.com).

What is the largest amount collected project on your platform. What is this project?

Sasha: – The Public Television Project “Support Public” collected 1 243 381 UAH., 2014, this is 124% of the planned amount.

For what shortest period did the project collect the full amount that it claimed for the collection?

Sasha: – Projects “Scientific Conference” Man and the Landscape “,” Where the Box is THERE and I “,” Solar collectors on the Falcon “- each of these projects for a minimum according to the rules of the platform 14 days collected 100 or more percent of the planned amount.

Is there any popularity among philanthropists for certain specific topics. Perhaps art, children, educational projects, environmental?

Sasha: More support is gathered for uniquely cultural and educational projects, this can be determined by the collected percentage of the planned amount. For example, the project ARTmobilization: the first Slavic mural collected 408% of the original amount (but more than half of them were profounded by the Covenant, so I do not know if this is a good example.) The next most rated is “ProSVIT – the center of innovative education” – 294%. And the greatest number of benefactors was at the project Prometeus – 1729 benefactors helped to collect 400 000 UAH.

What are the main features (characteristics) of projects that do not collect a single hryvnia?

Sasha: – Do not campaign, stop the work on the project after its publication, hoping that the very publication on Spilnokosht will provide support to philanthropists. In most cases, these are not very strong projects, where the authors do not have a clear vision of how to implement the project.

What should the initiator do to collect the right amount. Perhaps there are some promotion strategies, let’s say placement in social networks, alert in the media or television channels?

Sasha: Crowdfunding is a collective financing. The project is funded by the community – if it causes trust and the desire to support it, but as of the time of publication of the project, this community should already be formed. Successful campaigns of those projects that are responsibly approaching its preparation – know their target audience, actively interact with it in social networks, attract opinion leaders in the sphere in which the project is implemented, partner pages, friendly communities. You can also explore other similar campaigns on Spilnokosht, research which activities have worked and which ones have not. Successful limited remuneration also encourages some philanthropists to support the project.

Media support is important, but you should actively connect them when the project overcomes more than half of the amount – people who first hear about the project with the media will be more willing to support it if it produces the impression of a successful, dynamic one.”

So, crowdfunding in Ukraine is just beginning to develop, the promotion of the project requires a lot of effort, time and strategy. Since the essence of crowd-funding is determined by collective financing, its development in the country depends on the development of our society.

If you already have a project, you have develop a business plan for its implementation and are in search of starting capital, offer you what to look for investments in funds and credit organizations, try the possibilities of crowdfinding!