11 July 2016
Hey friends,
In this email, I’ll share some thoughts about starting a farm fund, a monthly crowdfunding campaign for sustainable farmers. This is something I’ve been thinking about for a long time and I’ve reached a point where I’d like to see if there is interest in trying this out.
So, board members … here’s a brief summary of this idea. I please offer feedback.
Each month,
- Permaville starts a crowdfunding campaign online
- People donate money to the campaign
- People at farms grow food to meet local demands, host workshops, manage guesthouses … they aim to achieve the principles and ethics in their environment.
- Farms can post to the Permaville facebook page about how they have been practicing sustainable living
- Posts can be verified
- Funds can be distributed to farms
- Then we do it again and again and again, and improve the idea each month
Some of the tenets we could try to uphold:
- Sustainable goals – Here’s a page with the Principles and Ethics as outlined in the Permaville course. These are common principles and ethics of those who practice sustainable living.
- Demonstrate – When making posts, farm managers can creatively show how they are working toward sustainability. Show what we did each month using pics and videos. We’re capable of creating amazing things. Start with the minimum. Do the maximum. Maximum power.
- Simplicity – For the website, we can use as few pages as possible, focus on clear communication between each other. Most communication can happen using Email, Word, PDF, Excel and Facebook. Many people are familiar with these programs. It may be easiest to share information this way. Any thoughts?
- Communication – Weekly emails. Each month, we can create a new crowdfunding campaign. Farms can post on Facebook each month and receive funds each month.
- Eligibility – For the first few months, the focus could be on farms and communities with existing websites and fb pages. Projects aiming toward sustainable living. Communities, farms, hostels, land, urban projects.
General flow
Donations
- We could use Generosity.com, a humanitarian crowd-funding site
Verification
- Farms can make a monthly post to the Permaville facebook page from their Farm’s Facebook page by the farm’s manager.
- Then farm managers can send an email to a Permaville admin person with a link or screenshot of the post. We’ll work on ways to verify these are real people working at real farms.
- If enough farms sign up, we can create regional email accounts to moderate post verification.
Distribution
- Payments could be made to farms via Paypal or Transferwise, both are internationally accepted payment forms. Paypal seems easier. Transferwise seems cheaper. Facebook messenger payments sound great, it seems only for US banks. If anyone has suggestions, please contact
- 97% of funds could be distributed evenly among farms, 3% could go to Permaville. same distribution as Udemy.com, an education platform
- Of the 97% of funds for farms, separate funds based on number of farms
What’s in it for the donors?
Donors can see exactly where their money is going and browse through fresh content posted by sustainable farmers from around the world. With constant, new data, we can make newsletters, charts, graphs, videos, webpages… This kind of information has high entertainment value.
What’s in it for the farmers?
Funds. Communication network with other farmers, other donors. To do something together. A reason to check in. Leadership by doing, by showing. A chance to inspire with something you’re doing. A way to integrate the web and farming.
This is the basic idea.
I’d be interested to hear any thoughts or questions this idea brings to mind. Other considerations, comments, suggestions? What additional information could be needed?
I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for reading.
In related news, the Alderson Food Hub group asked me to manage the community garden. My tasks are to care for the town garden and maintain a seed bank. I’m pleased to have this opportunity.
see u next week,
b