SAMANTHA WOOLVEN

Changing the face of tourism in Tanzania

 

Setting up a new charity, recruiting trustees, designing project outcomes and metrics, AND trying to raise money to fund it all. In December 2017, Equality in Tourism were looking to launch a crowdfunding campaign to kick-start their new women’s empowerment project, in the heart of tourist-central Tanzania. I led on their strategy and campaign management for this successful crowdfunding appeal.  

 

The Challenges:

1. Raising the money

They needed to raise £16,600 in just five weeks to pay for the first six months of training, development, and mentorship for 30 farming women looking to take charge of their own futures.

 

This would be a pilot project, looking to test assumptions and prove the potential transformational opportunity for both the women involved, their communities, and the tourism industry in that area. If successful, the approach could be replicated in other areas of high tourism in Tanzania and further afield, but they needed to fund this pilot stage first.

 

Successes: raising 97% of total target in just five weeks - receiving £16,118 from 155 backers

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2. Telling the story

Led by passion, understanding, and detailed knowledge of local issues this project had the potential to create a step-change in a way of life and earning money for this small community of women. The founders were incredibly knowledgeable on their subject, this was the culmination of years worth of industry expertise and conversations; however they now needed help to translate the depth of their story into a meaningful call to action. Potential for making a significant impact and a sense of urgency for action needed to be demonstrated throughout their campaign video, images, the crowdfunding campaign page, and the way in which they told their story in all of their marketing activity and networking.

 

Successes: I planned, wrote, and commissioned professionally designed copy-written content, stories, images, and film that they can tailor to use time and time again. This means that the team are better able to tell their story and talk about the importance of their work in a compelling and engaging way to a whole variety of individual and corporate audiences.

 

3. Taking a strategic approach to engaging new audiences

With an extensive network from previous roles and companies, the founder had a lot of people she could speak to and ask for support, but many of these were former acquaintances and further removed from the current project. She was very concerned about asking them to donate - this was not something she was comfortable with.

 

Successes: I developed a strategy to connect with and engage these audiences, creating specific messages relevant to their interests. I worked with the founder throughout the campaign to identify and effectively respond to opportunities, coaching her through lulls in momentum and appropriate follow up activities. Several key successes were achieved in this way: the campaign and importance of the project was shared across large-scale networks both in the UK and abroad, several companies gave in-kind donations and shared the project within their own communities, two companies donated significant sums of money to support the campaign, and now the charity are in discussions with some of these connections about how they can become the corporate charity partner in the coming year and how they can build a more strategic and longer-lasting partnership.

 

Working with the charity founder at Equality in Tourism, I helped define the core value proposition of the project, craft a meaningful story and raise the money they needed to launch their project.

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Equality in Tourism - working with Crowdfund 360