This post was revised and edited on 1st July 2025.
Crowdfunding is a way to raise money.
It’s becoming an increasingly popular way to raise money.
In 2024, Statista reckoned that the value of all crowdfunding transactions would be around $1.2billion, 40% of that raised in USA alone [1] with China as an increasingly important player.
Crowdfunding potentially offers an opportunity to expand money raising for anyone – individuals, small or large charities, small or large businesses, local and central government departments [2]. Crowdfunding is about both creators and supporters. Creators are those who create a crowdfunding campaign, and supporters are those that provide funds to that campaign.
This post focuses on creators, individuals or organisations, working at the intersection of health and climate that are looking for funds to support the transition to clean and resilient health systems.
What is It?
Crowdfunding started in the UK in 1997 when a pop band successfully sought donations from fans to support a reunion tour and has expanded rapidly ever since. The method promises relatively easy access to money, at low risk, with little resources, when compared to other ways that commercial and charitable organisations may use to raise money.
The easiness-factor here is only in relation to other ways of raising money.
There are four types of crowdfunding campaigns presently available:
- DONATION in which the creator of a campaign asks for money that will not be repaid to meet a particular need. It’s not debt so no repayment is necessary. For instance, crowdfunding medical expenses is relatively common.
- REWARD in which the creator of a campaign promises to make a product for supporters or provide a service to supporters after funds have been raised. This is essentially pre-sales.
- EQUITY in which the creator of a campaign offers shares in their company in return for money. These activities are now regulated by national financial regulations in many countries so there may be limits on how much different money can be invested by whom. Total loss of funds by supporters is possible. The creator may promise to pay a dividend in the usual way. There are numerous platforms per niche, for instance, for property, energy, gaming, bitcoin and so on.
- DEBT in which the creator of a campaign asks for a loan that may be repaid to supporters with interest. You might see this called peer-to-peer lending on some platforms. Many niche platforms that offer equity crowdfunding can also offer loans.
Before digging more into crowdfunding for health and climate, let’s take a look at previous campaigns and platforms to get a sense for what is possible.
Crowdfunding for Health and for Climate
The examples below cut across different types of crowdfunding. They focus on health and climate.
DONATION
- In the UK, a crowdfunding campaign by ‘Masks for NHS Heros’ called Personal Protective Equipment for NHS Staff during the early days of COVID19 raised GBP2.3millIion within 65 days [3]. The project had very high engagement, with individuals and community groups undertaking mini-fundraising efforts to contribute to the larger goal. A dedicated website showed deliveries made to different NHS trusts across the UK. The campaign closed on 1st June 2020. This campaign is notable because it was a fundraiser for a public health-system, created by a group of doctors working in that system.
- Medical crowdfunding platforms operating worldwide had raised over US$132 million by 2017 for individuals [4] with greater success when the platform was not investment-based or dedicated only to healthcare projects. In other words, when it seemed to be not seeking a profit.
- Three researchers tested out crowdfunding for medicine and health research and raised between US$7,000 and US$11,000 each [5].
- The Thailand Solar Fund was a donation crowdfunding campaign to install solar rooftop panels in 7 public hospitals and was a collaboration between and NGO and the Thai government [6].
REWARD
It’s more difficult to find crowdfunding examples in health and climate for reward-based crowdfunding though there is now increasing interest in reward crowdfunding for circular economy products and services [7].
EQUITY
A platform call Ecoligo has been offering debt and equity swaps to developing country businesses and charities to access solar power. It offers solar-as-service undertaking financing, construction, operation and maintenance, as well as taking responsibility for solar performance. It aims for 20-year durability of installation.
In return, crowdfund supporters obtain equity (or debt) in the featured company along with interest or dividends. Their health projects include solar-as-service for pharmaceutical companies and multiple campaigns by the San Pedro charitable hospital in the Philippines. There is a risk warning on the San Pedro campaigns that funds may never be paid back [8].
DEBT
Kiva is a platform that allows supporters, usually from high income countries, to micro-lend small loans to individuals in developing countries. The money is channeled from Kiva through in-country credit organisations which charge interest. Supporters do not obtain interest, but the platform claims that 96% of loans are repaid. Kiva keeps an open book on interest rates charged. There is no information on whether the loan recipients ever clear their loan to the in-country credit organisation. Loan requests for health include from individuals to pay for medical expenses or small pharmacies to buy stock for resale [9].
Some Basics
Fundera [10] conducted a useful review of across all types of crowdfunding, which I will summarise below. A word of caution that what follows are averages. The realities of a crowdfunding campaign will differ by type of crowdfunding, the platform used, and the area of work.
But with that in mind, here are some useful averages to think with.
Successful crowdfunding campaigns raise an average of US$28,656 on average. That is, successful campaigns balance realism and ambition when setting their target.
The average amount raised across all crowdfunding types in 2023 was US$824. This figures tells you that most crowdfunding campaigns fail. Kickstarter, a crowdfunding platform for creatives and artists has a success rate (i.e. creators successfully obtaining target funds) of around 36%. Experiment, which is a platform to crowdfunded research, had a success rate of 48%. These rates are much higher than grants.
Taken together, each crowdfunding project has an average of 47 supporters, while fully funded crowdfunding campaigns have an average of 300 backers. In other words, most successful campaigns rely on many supporters giving a moderate amount of money rather than a small number of supporters giving large amounts.
The average amount given to a fully funded campaign was US$96, while across all crowdfunding campaigns, the average was US$88. This backs up the point above that many supporters giving moderate amounts is what counts. This means that engagement with your supporters is critical.
Connecting with your supporters clearly matters: campaigns with videos explaining why the money is needed get an average of 105% more money than campaigns without a video. Regular updates raise 126% more money than campaigns without updates. Connecting with supporters through email raised 53% more money than campaigns without email.
And timing matters. Crowdfunding campaigns that raise 30% or more of their target amount within the first week are more likely to succeed. A way to build this support would be using a pre-existing email list.
It’s interesting that supporters of crowdfunding are younger, with the age bracket 24-35years old much more likely to participate in crowdfunding campaigns, than those over 45 years who are significantly less likely to back campaigns.
(All statistics above are from Fundera).
The Ecoligo platform make an interesting point: that “people want to do good in the world. Don’t let the news cycle make you think otherwise” [8]. Academic research backs this up, arguing that crowdfunding supporters particularly on sustainability and social orientated campaigns, contribute from a mix of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Supporters get a ‘soft glow’ effect [11] – a feeling of satisfaction from having done ‘good’ in the world. This emphasises a need for strong engagement with your supporters. Your supporters need to feel that they are critical to the success or failure of the project at hand in order to be motivated to contribute to it.
The ‘soft glow’ effect was also found in medical crowdfunding. In donation-based medical crowdfunding, the main incentive to supporters was social return – supporters give for the satisfaction of seeing projects conducted and responded to the emotional pull of the creator’s campaign (notably, not the gravity of the recipient’s situation per se). A higher number of successful campaigns were found in countries where public money for health was lower suggesting a substitution (rather than complementary) effect between medical crowdfunding and public financing [4] for the local health system.
For investment-based crowdfunding, institutional characteristics and social perception are important: such as social freedom, trust in local institutions, quality of public services. For instance, faith in the stability of policy measures for renewable energy over time has a significant effect in investment decisions. Social context has a critical effect on campaign success for green projects. Localities with high carbon emissions or air pollution can influence greater chance of reaching (or over-reaching) a funding target.
Research continues to suggest that while a crowdfunding campaign can attract supporters from around the world, local supporters are the most active, possibly because ecological concerns are felt more explicitly [12] and their role as early supporters increases the chance of achieving a funding target.
In the case of crowdfunded research in medicine and healthcare, an ethics review for the research was undertaken through the researcher’s home institution and institutional support of some kind (such as help with video and other media) was available to the researcher. However, it’s not clear how much resources were needed to start and maintain the campaign [5].
Realistically, time is one of the largest commitments needed.
Reality Bites
Undertaking and managing successful crowdfunding campaigns look rather similar to grants.
First, any type of crowdfunding campaign requires person-time. Person time to plan, to implement, and if successful, to manage the resulting work. Success partly comes from giving yourself time to plan. Planning might take days or might take months, depending on what you are able and willing to put into it. Critically, your planning time is used to build your community of supporters along with a strong email list [3]. Your pre-campaign activities could include work like identifying a platform, creating project information and video, developing an FAQs (frequently asked questions) section, posting regular updates to your supporters through email as well as publicising the upcoming campaign across general media.
Campaigns are usually short in duration and a time of intense work. You could be updating and publicising the campaign throughout the period. On completion, if the campaign was unsuccessful, you might still want to spend time reconnecting with your supporters on what happens next with their pledges and with the project. You could also invite interested supporters to stay on an email list as part of your community engagement for your next project. If successful, your time moves into updating your community and actually carrying out the project (research, or reward, etc).
Second, existing research and media on crowdfunding makes continual emphasis on supporter engagement. Successful donation and rewards campaigns get moderate amounts from many supporters. Campaigns with email lists get more. Supporters not only give money, they also spread the word about your campaign, which is equally important. Creating a compelling story and being willing to revise it when necessary [13]. The narrative should include topic buzzwords, feeling words, and be updated during the campaign [14]. This may be especially true for sustainability projects – adopting specific keywords for sustainable product/service descriptions (e.g. repairable, recycled) improved chances to obtain the funding goal while generic words in the campaign story lowered success. Sustainability projects may be more find-able on sustainability specific platforms, therefore have higher visibility and therefore engagement [15].
World Health Organization has usefully created a manual on crowdfunding health research. The manual clearly places crowdfunding as a part of public engagement within a wider research program [16].
Third, if you use an online donation or rewards based crowdfunding platform, fees will apply. For example, on:
- Kickstarter. Kickstarter is an all-or-nothing platform meaning if you don’t achieve your goal, you get zero funds. If the funding goal is achieved, the platform collects a 5% fee, and payment processing fees of 3% + a fee per pledge (e.g. in USA it’s US$0.20 per pledge). If the funding goal is not achieved, there are no fees;
- Indiegogo, you can keep the funds raised even if you don’t hit your goal. It has the same fee and a transfer fee for transferring the pooled funds from the platform into your local bank account and local currency (if the currency is different);
- Experiment, for academic research projects, has an 8% fee and a pledge processing fee of 2.9% + US$0.20 per pledge. You can choose either all-or-nothing or keep-it-all type of campaign;
- Ecoligo, as an equity and loan platform, doesn’t charge supporters a fee to invest. Clients pay for the solar-as-service.
(Fees correct as at July 2024).
So far most of the research and media discussed above is all about one-off campaigns.
But how about successive crowdfunding campaigns over time?
More than One
There is less research and online content on successive crowdfunding.
A 2016 article on successive crowdfunding campaigns between 2009 and 2015 in the arts found that more campaigns were one-time-only with a lot fewer second or more campaigns by the same creator.
Creators who had succeeded with their first campaign were much more likely than average to succeed again and succeed bigger the second time. However, first-time failure reduced those odds.
Creators who failed to get their funding target first time reduced their funding goal second time and relaunched the next campaign within 3 months. For those successful first time, the time to their second time was much longer. This might be due to the creator spending the obtained money but also a greater understanding of what worked first time and increased time in planning [17].
Successive campaigns work when you don’t raise money just for the sake of it but rather focus on value to your supporters. You also keep investing your time and energy in engaging your supporters from your first campaign and expand for the next campaign including finding ways to get your supporters involved [18].
Success with your second, third, or more, campaign seems to involve setting a small first-time funding target. This increases your likelihood of a small early success and it means that the small project is actually deliverable. Part of your success in holding onto your supporters for the future is delivering what you said you would deliver in the first campaign [19].
Successive campaigns still need time for engagement and planning as well as learning from both your successes and failures. All of these factors allow you to aim for successively bigger funding targets next time round.
Research on equity-based crowdfunding research shows that supporters do behave like consumers but that they are using video and documentation signals of quality of a project. Signals that are demonstrably more costly to the creator increase the confidence of supporters that the project is valuable and worthy of support. One such signal is previous successful crowdfunding campaigns and previous fundraising achievements. Successive crowdfunding campaigns increase supporter confidence in the quality of a project and is one reason why some crowdfunding campaigns can overfund: when a funding goal is massively overreached [20].
Alternatives
It’s worth remembering that there are alternatives to successive crowdfunding campaigns.
You work on building an engaged crowd and transforming into loyal supporters who support you directly without a campaign. For instance, buy directly from your website if reward based; donate direct to you in the way that charities do; or invest direct such as investment platforms do. This eliminates platform fees and smooths out intense campaign workloads.
And so…
Should you get started on a crowdfunding campaign today?
- Yes, if you have time and commitment to build, or strengthen, your crowd of supporters before you start your crowdfunding campaign.
- Yes, if you have a process, or be willing to create one, that will help you hold onto that crowd for the long term – this gives a sustainable payoff to all the work that you will do for any one crowdfunding campaign.
- Yes, if you want a small amount of one off project funding as a seed fund. You will still have to put a lot of your time into the campaign but keep expectations realistic.
- No, if you just want a large amount of one-off project funds and don’t have time to build your crowd around what you are doing.
References
[1] Statista https://www.statista.com/outlook/dmo/fintech/digital-capital-raising/crowdfunding/worldwide?currency=usd
[2] Hong et al (2019) Crowdfunding Public Projects: Collaborative Governance for Achieving Citizen Co-funding of Public Goods Government Information Quarterly https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2018.11.009
[3] Crowdfunder https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/masks4nhsheroes
[4] Bassani et al (2019) Crowdfunding in Healthcare Journal of Technology Transfer https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-018-9663-7
[5] Kpokiri E et al (2022) Crowdfunding for Health Research: a Qualitative Evidence Synthesis and a Pilot Programme BMJ Global Health https://doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2022-009110
[6] Greenpeace Thailand 7 Solar Hospitals Launched via Crowdfunding https://www.greenpeace.org/eastasia/blog/2975/how-greenpeace-is-campaigning-in-asia-for-the-climate/
[7] Leone D et al (2023) Reward-based Crowdfunding for Building a Valuable Circular Business Model Journal of Business Research https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.113562
[8] Ecoligo https://ecoligo.com/en/
[9] Kiva https://www.kiva.org/
[10] Fundera https://www.fundera.com/resources/crowdfunding-statistics
[11] See Dinh et al (2023) Sustainability-oriented Crowdfunding: An Integrative Literature Review Journal of Cleaner Production https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2024.141579 ;
[12] Adhami et al (2017) Crowdfunding for Green Projects in Europe: Success Factors and Effects on the Local environmental Performance and Wellbeing http://www.crowdfundres.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Crowdfunding-for-green-projects-in-Europe-2017.pdf
[13] Launchboom https://www.launchboom.com/blog/why-crowdfunding-campaigns-fail-common-pitfalls-and-how-to-avoid-them/
[14] Babayoff et al (2022) The Role of Semantics in the Success of Crowdfunding Projects PlosOne https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263891
[15] Corsini et al (2023) Exploring the Development of Environmentally Sustainable Products through Reward‑based Crowdfunding Electronic Commerce Research https://doi.org/10.1007/s10660-021-09509-5
[16] WHO (2021) Public Engagement and Crowdfunding in Health Research: a Practical Guide Geneva: World Health Organization
[17] StephenFollows: Decoding the World Through Data (2016) https://stephenfollows.com/multiple-crowdfunding-campaigns/
[18] Crowdcrux https://www.crowdcrux.com/running-multiple-crowdfunding-campaigns/
[19] Crowdcrux https://www.crowdcrux.com/these-serial-kickstarter-entrepreneurs-share-their-recipe-for-crowdfunding-success/
[20] Wasti et al (2024) Role of Successive Round as a Quality Signal in Equity Crowdfunding: Novel Evidence from The Perspective of Investors’ Preferences PLoS One https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0297820