Crowdfunding for legal cases
Whether it is you and your friends pooling funds for the tea and milk in the office kitchen, your siblings getting together to buy parental birthday presents, or thousands of strangers collectively contributing nearly $3.5million towards the development of cat ear shaped headphones, crowdfunding is a familiar concept to most people. These days, it has had a digital re-vamp. Crowdfunding platforms are making things possible that once would have been unthinkable.
And that includes crowdfunding legal cases.
With the right planning and sufficient commitment, anyone can crowdfund, but there are a few things that you can do to make sure things run smoothly. As with any fundraising, you have to invest time and energy to get the outcome you want.
Here are five things to consider before you launch:
- Before you start, set clear objectives in terms of how much you want to raise, what it’s for and when you need it by. Your lawyer should be able to help, too.
- Choose the right platform! Unlike many other things that people crowdfund for, there are stringent regulations for lawyers to comply with when taking money from clients. Legal cases also have nuances and funding needs that change over time, and your Backers will want to stay updated as the case progresses. CrowdJustice is set up to accommodate all the needs of legal crowdfunding.
- Think about how you are going to tell your story to persuade people to part with their hard-earned cash. At its core, your legal case is a story about how you are trying to change your situation or those of others around you.
- It’s never too early to start building your community and considering who you are going to reach out to. Consider the social networks online or offline that you are part of - email, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, a newsletter, a community group? Your community may be more powerful than you know.
- Dedicate enough time to planning your crowdfunding campaign - people will not pledge if you don’t put in the time and energy to build and maintain the momentum of the campaign. It is important to dedicate resource to planning and executing on all the various communications with your community for the duration, and you will need a bit of time afterwards too, to keep people updated.
And don’t forget…
The first few hours of the campaign are the most important in terms of securing pledges - if you aren’t prepared to put your money where your mouth is and make a pledge, others won’t want to either. Being the first to donate means you’ll get the campaign going, and this will encourage others to join in.
Crowdfunding is en empowering experience when it is done well. It makes a unique connection between the cause at the heart of the case and supporters. It important to recognise the generosity of the act of pledging hard-earned cash to help with your case. People want you to follow up with news on the progress of the case. And of course, it is always good to say thank you.
Crowdfunding a legal case is a powerful way for you to achieve real change. Check out live cases to see what others are doing, or submit a case here!
Good luck!
A version of this blog was originally published on NCVO’s Know How Non-Profit wiki
Have a legal case that could benefit from crowdfunding?