German crowdfunding platform comes to the rescue of local businesses

A few days ago, VKU Verlag opened its national platform for municipal crowdfunding for all affected local businesses from the fields of gastronomy, sport, culture and social affairs. It offers VKU member companies free cooperation in order to be able to help themselves better on the crowdfunding platform.

The interest in the offer has been huge so far. The first ten municipal companies will start “Crowd vs. Corona” in the next few days and will be advised by the crowdfunding experts. In addition, platform operators with useful tips and tricks for a successful crowdfunding campaign will be helping those interested to launch one.

In return, projects that go online on the crowdfunding platform of VKU Verlag will be displayed via a widget on the respective homepages of the municipal utilities and suppliers, insofar as they themselves do not yet operate their own crowdfunding platform. To ensure that the projects have the greatest possible chance of being successfully financed, they are assigned to the municipal companies on the basis of their postcode.

Discover how businesses and people around the world have launched crowdfunding campaigns to cope with the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic and get inspired. Read the best business news with the Born2Invest mobile app.

Advantages also for existing crowdfunding campaigns

The ten front runners implementing the “crowd against Corona” on their side include the municipal utilities of Troisdorf, Bad Windsheim, Offenbach, Constance, Osnabrück, Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz, Speyer, Leinfelden-Echterdingen, Verden, as well as Aschaffenburger Versorgungs-GmbH, EBERwerk, Überlandwerke Groß-Gerau and Energieversorgung Greiz.

However, not only newcomers to the crowdfunding platform can use the services of the VKU publishing house. The 20 existing municipal crowdfunding campaigns will also benefit from the national platform. Thus, all crowdfunding projects currently underway there, will also be played out nationally in order to increase their reach.

On the website, the initiative is described as follows: “For municipal companies, this is an opportunity to move forward and provide socially relevant and sustainable help in the crisis, because we are certain that many people will be willing to play their part in the current situation. And this is exactly where crowdfunding is a good opportunity, which we would like to take up together with you. We have technically adapted the www.kommunales-crowdfunding.de platform so that it can be used free of charge by all municipal companies throughout Germany as an immediate measure. In this way, you can provide direct and efficient help to numerous institutions, companies, associations and individuals in your region. This opening is valid for the time being until the end of July 2020.”

First successful crowdfunding projects to fight the Corona crisis

There are already a few initial successes. The initiative Innenstadt Jena has collected almost $21,600 (€20,000) to sew protective masks for health and nursing staff or volunteers, and then make them available free of charge. The Ebertbad Private Theatre and the Niebuhrg in Oberhausen have also far exceeded their donation target even before the deadline.

Consequently, there is also positive news in the Corona crisis and even beyond that, the municipal crowdfunding campaigns have already been able to book over 900,000 for their project starters within two years. The current offer of VKU-Verlag to use the national crowdfunding platform is free of charge and valid until the end of July.

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(Featured image by scholty1970 via Pixabay)

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