PledgUp, a new crowdfunding website dedicated to community groups and projects, is offering €1,000 for groups that come up with the most innovative fundraising ideas.
Longford-based PledgUp is a free service that helps community groups get online donations for their projects. Once a group sets up a profile on the website they receive a link to a personalised fundraising page that they can email to their contacts or post on social media sites, asking for donations.
The service allows groups to ask for straight forward donations or to look for financial sponsorship of events they are organising. The groups can also get all their members involved by inviting them to join. Once they do, they also receive a personalised page and the amount raised by each person is shown to the entire group.
Once people click on the links they are brought to a personalised page where they get details of the fundraiser and can donate online.
“Smaller community groups have excellent networks and contacts in Ireland and abroad,” PledgUp co-founder Eoin Kennedy explained.
“Where they fall down is with technology skills. We have designed our platform to make it really simple and free for groups to create an online sponsorship page and to process online donations without the need for technical skills. We are receiving lots of interest from community groups trying to fundraise for a variety of things from new playgrounds, memorials, right the way through to sports clubs looking for online donations for events like Strictly Come Dancing and Duathlons.”
Kennedy is chair of the Irish Internet Association’s Social Media Working Group.
PledgUp, originally known as Knudger, was established by Kennedy and John Rowan. The company is part of Enterprise Ireland’s High Potential Start-Up programme and aims to make online fundraising accessible to all worthy causes.
“Every community in Ireland has some project they are trying to raise funds for. By signing up before the end of February they will be entered into a competition for a €1,000 donation pool.
“We are looking for the best fundraising causes and ideas. In addition to the competition, they will also be able to use their personalised fundraising pages to immediately reach out to possible donors anywhere in the world,” Kennedy said.
