Crowdfunding to raise cash online for Jamaica’s kids

Crowdfunding is pretty new generally but even more so in Jamaica. Wikipedia defines Crowd funding (sometimes called crowd financing or crowd sourced capital) as the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money together, usually via the Internet, in order to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations.

I saw that once again, David Mullings was online raising money, this time for Crayons Count, a social initiative that’s focused on providing learning kits for early childhood learning centres in Jamaica.  So I asked him a few questions to share about this mission to raise cash online for Jamaican kids.

The Background

Crowdfunding has continued to make strides and after I was able to successfully raise money for my short-film on the Jamaican railroad and its connection to my family last year I have constantly kept my eyes open for other ways we could leverage this burgeoning model. And then came Crayons Count.

My good friend Deika Morrison who founded Do Good Jamaica and has had my support since day one for it approached me with an idea to provide learning kits for all the early childhood learning centres in Jamaica. She sounded so sad that so many children did not have access to simple things like crayons. I was surprised as well and offered my assistance to help involve the Jamaican diaspora.

It was my firm belief that technology could be leveraged to reach a larger group of people, make it easy to donate and to set an example for other non-profit projects looking to raise funds. The goal for Crayons Count is to raise as much money as possible via online donations and add that to what is raised offline in order to purchase the various items that make up a learning kit. These kits will then be distributed across Jamaica to more 2700 centres.

SC: What crowdfunding tool are you using and why ?

DM: The most popular platforms for crowdfunding are Kickstarter and IndieGoGo. I was planning to use IndieGoGo because unlike Kickstarter which is an all or nothing platform, meaning if you don’t hit your target you get no money, IndieGoGo allows you to keep whatever you raise but pay a higher commission. Ultimately we had to go with IndieGoGo because Kickstarter does not allow crowdunding for charitable projects.

SC: How are you marketing it?

DM: Many people don’t realize that crowdfunding is primarily driven by your own network. Our marketing has primarily been leveraging our networks on Facebook, Twitter, sending emails and distributing press releases or getting press. Separate from posting status updates and sharing the videos we also created an event on Facebook and invited a number of people. On Twitter we have leveraged hasthtags such as #Jamaica to reach more people and aimed to get retweets from supporters. Some people like the project so much that they have taken on drumming up support in their own regions.

SC: Are the ones saying yes primarily Jamaican or Jamaican Diaspora ?

DM: We are not able to actually see the geographic breakdown of where donors are coming from but anecdotal evidence seems to point to an even mix of overseas and local Jamaicans. That is very interesting because local Jamaicans could deposit directly to a bank account that was setup or even donate items but some clearly prefer to do so online. We believe this is directly tied to the publicity of the target, the special items you can get for different levels of donations and the ease of donating online. Sometimes people just want to be part of a unique initiative.

It is not clear if crowdfunding is still suspect to Jamaicans but it can only help for us to be very transparent with how we use the money that is raised to continue to build their confidence. Online donations in general still seem suspect to some of the older individuals who have sent us questions but this initiative definitely is sensitizing Jamaicans on the island and abroad to the possibilities technology now present.

Crowdfunding can make a major difference in access to capital for Jamaican startups or even established businesses. There is no reason that a Jamaican business cannot list a product that they would seek to develop along the lines of what Minimal did with their TikTok and LunaTik watch cases and pre-sell the product. In the same way, it is feasible for entrepreneurs to leverage crowdfunding for artistic projects such as films and music albums. We obviously can replicate charitable causes and raise money for a wide cross section of projects as well.

The opportunities are limited by the mind and the will to put in the time. I hope that Crayons Count using crowdfunding as one avenue to secure donations and raise awareness helps to make it more mainstream among Jamaicans.

David Mullings is the Diaspora Ambassador for Do Good Jamaica. He is an entrepreneur and investor. Find him at twitter.com/davidmullings and facebook.com/davidpmullings