Sixty-three participants from HNI affiliate and sister organisations learn how to launch their own crowdfunding campaign

The pandemic has had a huge impact on the lives and livelihoods of home-based workers and their organisations. This has been accompanied by natural and human-made disasters in various parts of the world leading to double jeopardy for home-based workers. One of the key requests of HNI affiliates was to train them on crowdfunding, which has proven to be very effective for raising small funds, especially during the times of emergencies and disasters.

Due to this, HNI has begun a 10 week-long online course in English on crowdfunding for its affiliate organisations from South Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa. In the upcoming months we will be providing the same crowdfunding training for our affiliates in Latin America.

The goal of this course is for the participants to launch their first crowdfunding campaign. The training includes sessions that are useful beyond crowdfunding, such as story writing, how to take quality photos and the use of social media platforms such as Facebook. The course is organised by HNI in partnership with WIEGO and is delivered by Mr. Marco Kuntze from Relishing Digital, an experienced digital fundraiser.

The weekly sessions have been broken up into the following topics:
  1. Understanding what crowdfunding is and how will it benefit you
  2. Selecting the right crowdfunding platform to use
  3. Planning your campaign and setting your goals
  4. Telling your story, creating your page, getting your first donations and sharing your page
  5. Keeping your supporters engaged throughout your campaign, tracking your goal and updating your plans
  6. Using Facebook for crowdfunding
  7. Taking good photos for crowdfunding
  8. Closing your campaign, thanking your supporters, putting your project into action and staying connected with your supporters

Participants have been actively taking part in the training and have shared their impression so far:

“We are working closely with women workers of the informal sector, of which home-based workers are a part of. In this training I got in depth information about crowdfunding which will help me and my organisation to get funds for women workers. Without money the work is not possible. We have prepared our story which we are adding to the crowdfunding platform.Thank you to HomeNet International for this opportunity.”

Reema Kapoor, IASEW

“It is a useful tool and another alternative for the solicitation of funds. We at least understand what issues and situations to seek support or donations from the public, no matter if it’s a small or big amount. The other important part of the Crowdfunding Training is not only taking the pictures, but also understanding the quality of the pictures, the activities we want to highlight and sharing a clearer picture.”
Sinoeun Men, Cambodia Home-Based Workers Association (CHWA)
“As a Home-based Worker leader I needed to understand the gender dynamics of home-based workers, through a Masters study in Women and Gender studies at Makerere University Kampala Uganda, this was made a reality through a crowdfunding campaign which raised funds for my tuition for my first year of study, without it I would not have taken on the opportunity to study, as from our work we were out of orders and our savings had been depleted by the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns.

The ongoing crowdfunding training will help a wider number of women at our organisation called Envirojewels, as the training has given me further insight of how I can use it to benefit a wider community of women to learn a new skill called hand loom weaving and have the production materials needed. This will support production of new products that are more marketable than the products we have right now.”

Betty Lunkuse, Envirojewels

“The crowdfunding training is really a great opportunity for me as well as for my organization. I had no idea on crowdfunding before this training. The most helpful aspect of the crowdfunding training is that the organization has a clear idea now and the organization will now be able to raise funds through crowdfunding. The facilitators interactive sessions and experiences from fellow participants are really very helpful for me and my organization to move forward.”

Asad Uddin, Program Coordinator, OSHE foundation