Cape Town Activa and Kaya Labs conducted a crowdfunding workshop at the Cape Town Activa offices on the Foreshore, on 30 August 2013.
The workshop was aimed at entrepreneurs and founders of non-profit, artistic and cultural ventures, and spoke of the ways in which to use crowdfunding to fund their businesses.
Crowdfunding allows people to fund their business by drawing on relatively small contributions from a large number of internet users, without standard financial intermediaries.
The workshop covered case studies from other crowdfunding campaigns, and focused on Ubuntu Edge and the Cape Cultural Collective’s current Indiegogo campaign for uHadi, a poetry performance project invited to perform at the Paris Autumn Festival later this year. Local crowdfunding platforms, Thundafund and Given Gain, also shared their insights on the funding method.
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor South Africa 2012 Report highlights financing as one of the areas that requires serious attention to enable entrepreneurs to succeed. In response to this, Cape Town Activa is working with a number of organisations to develop solutions to this challenge.
“This event is testament to the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit that exists in Cape Town. The City of Cape Town fully supports entrepreneurs and acknowledges their value to the economic ecosystem. This event is another victory in the fight against unemployment and poverty,” says Mayoral Committee Member for Economics, Environment and Spatial Planning, Councillor Garreth Bloor.
David-John Bailey, an entrepreneur who attended the workshop, said it was “a fantastic intervention”. He admitted to initially being hesitant of crowdfunding, but his fears were allayed after hearing about the support offered by the various organisations in Cape Town and the individuals hoping to embark on the campaigns.
Kaya Labs is in the process of developing an e-book that will be shared with the participants to gain further insights on crowdfunding. For more information, e-mail admin@kayalabs.co or info@ctactiva.info.
Image: Thundafund’s Andrea Morgan.
