Crowdfunder acquires Rocketfund to help boost schools’ fundraising efforts
Melanie May | 22 October 2020 | News
Crowdfunder has announced the acquisition of school and PTA crowdfunding platform Rocketfund.
Since Rocketfund’s launch, schools and parent teacher associations (PTAs) have used it for over 500 crowdfunding projects, which have raised £400,000 to date. The platform charges no fees with successful projects charged solely on transactions. Crowdfunder plans to scale the platform to enable access for every school in the UK, and help them with fundraising by providing coaching, rewards-based giving and the opportunity to apply for match funding from a pot of £1 million provided by its private sector partners such as Aviva and M&S Energy.
Crowdfunder acquired the platform back in March with Rocketfund retaining its own brand and website. With children now back at school but many traditional school fundraising activities such as bake sales, quizzes, Christmas fairs and Christmas plays cancelled this year due to social distancing restrictions, Rocketfund is aiming to help schools run these online instead. It is also holding two webinars in November to help schools and PTAs with ideas for online fundraising.
It also plans to help state schools fundraise from their alumni as is more often seen in the private school sector. According to Future First research, sector schools miss out on £100m untapped cash from their alumni every year, with private schools raising an average £667,000 per year on average.
Rob Love, Founder and CEO Crowdfunder, said:
“School fundraising has always existed. Shifting these efforts online is turbocharging the amount schools can raise, the number of people they can reach for support and reducing the time and effort required. Crowdfunder will harness this and level the educational playing field – helping schools in less-privileged areas to connect with the wealth so enjoyed by schools in more affluent areas.”
Ben Gill, who has joined Crowdfunder from Nesta to lead on the integration of Rocketfund’s work said:
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“We want to take Rocketfund to every school in the UK and help them to raise more money, more easily. From VR headsets to outdoor nature projects, it’s incredible to see the things that schools are already fundraising for. I’m looking forward to seeing what they do next, when we encourage them to dream bigger with the extra support and extra funding available from Crowdfunder.”
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.