{"id":4172,"date":"2014-03-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-24T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/?p=4172"},"modified":"2024-05-08T17:49:07","modified_gmt":"2024-05-08T17:49:07","slug":"crowdfunding-bread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/blog\/crowdfunding-bread\/","title":{"rendered":"What We Can Learn About Crowdfunding From Bread Making"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Before we talk shop about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/crowdfunding\/\">crowdfunding<\/a>, I\u2019d like to ponder another favorite thing of mine: food. Especially, carbs.<\/p>\n<p>Like, matzoh and bread, for example, both are tasty and are made with flour &amp; water. But one is flat and crispy, the other round and fluffy.<\/p>\n<p>What sets the two apart? Yeast and time.<\/p>\n<p>Yeast is what turns a pasty mixture of flour and water into buoyant dough. It doesn\u2019t take much to do the trick; it just needs to be activated to work its magic. Even then, yeast is still low maintenance: add warm water &amp; sugar, and voila \u2013 the bread party has started.<\/p>\n<p>Baking bread is a simple process, but it takes time. Unless you get that instant activating yeast. Still, you need time for the yeast to work its way through the dough for it to rise.<\/p>\n<p>Then, you need to knead the dough, which takes time and some muscle. But ya gotta knead it just right: too little leaves your bread flat, too much gets you an edible paperweight.<\/p>\n<p>Crowdfunding is like baking bread, it involves a few key ingredients and a simple process.<\/p>\n<p>Now let\u2019s break down this delicious analogy to crowdfunding:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Flour + Water + Salt = Story, Campaign Goal<\/li>\n<li>Yeast = Supporters<\/li>\n<li>Water + Sugar = Social Media<\/li>\n<li>Kneading = Engagement<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In more detail&#8230;<\/p>\n<h2>Start with a story and campaign goal<\/h2>\n<p>No flour &amp; water, no bread, right?<\/p>\n<p>Your crowdfunding campaign should have substance. Fortunately, your nonprofit does have a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/nonprofit-storytelling-crowdfunding\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">compelling story<\/a>. Do make sure that your <a href=\"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/crowdfunding-online-fundraising-goal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">campaign goal<\/a> is well-defined in scope. A vague goal is like too much water mixed with flour \u2013 you\u2019ll end up with a batter rather than a base for dough.<\/p>\n<h2>Let it grow with supporters<\/h2>\n<p>Remember how a little goes a long way with yeast? It\u2019s the same with growing your audience.<\/p>\n<p>Start with your fans, however few or many of them they are. If they\u2019re as gung-ho about your mission as you are, you\u2019ll eventually draw the crowds. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/community-building-for-crowdfunding\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Passion has a magnetic effect on people.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>But you need to help your supporters help you. Yeast needs water and sugar to grow (yes, yeast is a living thing), and your supporters need help in multiplying.<\/p>\n<h2>Social media extends your reach<\/h2>\n<p>Since crowdfunding is done online, you\u2019ll need online tools \u2013 namely, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/social-media-influencers-online-fundraising\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">social media<\/a>. Social media allows your supporters to spread the word about your organization and the campaign.<\/p>\n<h2>Engage your community<\/h2>\n<p>After your dough is \u201cproofed\u201d, as they say in the trade, it needs kneading.<\/p>\n<p>Crowdfunding is not a \u201cset it and forget it\u201d enterprise; you\u2019ll need to get hands-on with the campaign. If you\u2019re not marketing it enough, you won\u2019t get very far; however, if you\u2019re over tweeting and every Facebook post is about the campaign all the time, you\u2019ll get tuned out.<\/p>\n<p>Avoid the extremes: people who are aloof or desperate repel people.<\/p>\n<p>All of this takes some time. Once in a while, you might be able to throw something together fairly last minute. But mostly, you\u2019ll find that building relationships with your supporters, and planning out your campaign takes time.<\/p>\n<p>You need to give supporters and their networks time to respond to your calls to action. Time to preheat the oven and time to let the dough actually bake into bread.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;<\/p>\n<p>So what\u2019s the lesson to be learned? Like breadmaking, crowdfunding isn\u2019t rocket science but it isn\u2019t a quick-fix, either. There are rules and an order to things, but some of it is mastered more by intuition than hard-and-fast rule-keeping. It\u2019s an art that requires creative precision.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>I tip my proverbial hat to Emma Christensen, author &amp; recipe editor for The Ktchn, for schooling me on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thekitchn.com\/bread-baking-clinic-under-knea-157484\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">kneading bread through this post<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before we talk shop about crowdfunding, I\u2019d like to ponder another favorite thing of mine: food. Especially, carbs. Like, matzoh and bread, for example, both are tasty and are made with flour &amp; water. But one is flat and crispy, the other round and fluffy. What sets the two apart? Yeast and time. Yeast is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Rob Wu","author_link":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/author\/rob\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}