DRAFT Citizen Science Funding Toolkit
for the Great Barrier Reef Citizen Science Alliance
Description
Loans are debt offered by a funder to a client that require re-payment of capital and typically interest.
Community Banks and Social Finance Funds offer low-interest or no-interest loans to organisations and social enterprises that meet strict criteria, normally related to ecological, social, and financial standards.
Considerations
Is your organisation structured in a way that it can accept and service debt, or do you have Board support to make the necessary adjustments?
Do you have a rigorous financial model that is likely to deliver financial returns above the interest rate?
How long will it take to return a profit and repay the loan?
What is the risk-adjusted financial return on investment for the activity to be finded by the loan?
Relevance to GBR Citizen Science
Non-profit organisations do not usually consider loans to fund their programmatic activity, yet if an activity is designed to return a profit (see examples above), a loan can be a useful tool to secure up-front capital needs.
Loans might be used to pay for the development of new products or services that are predicted to create a financial return greater than the interest rate of the loan, over a time period shorter than the terms of the loan.
Resources
See examples of potential social finance lenders on the Investors page.
Product Sales
Products or 'goods' are tangible items that can be sold. The product may help meet the mission of the non-profit directly, for example the sale of an educational resource, or indirectly, for example the sale of NGO-branded merchandise that boosts awareness.
EDUCATION
Education is often a core objective of citizen science organisations and it makes sense to consider if some educational activities can be conducted as cost recovery or profit-seeking business models. If the recipient of education values their experience, they may be willing to pay for it. Sometimes an existing good could be sold, perhaps an educational book that was previously grant-funded and distributed. Other times, educational information can be repackaged into marketable goods, for example, the development of new learning programs that participants pay to attend.
TOURISM
The tourism industry is often a critical partner to citizen science organisations in the Great Barrier Reef region. Tourism business may consider partnering with a non-profit to market and distrubite NGO-branded merchandise. This provides benefits to the business because they have the marketing advantage of being associated with an environmentally-friendly community group, and allows the collection of revenue to flow to the non-profit.
GENERAL MERCHANDISE
Often non-profits have brands that are appealing to the general public. Any product with your logo and branding may be a potential revenue-raiser.
Fee-for-service contracts
Corporate Sponsorships
Funding Tools
A funding tool is a mechanism to raise money for your organization. This page summarizes funding tools that may useful for citizen science non-profit organizations in Australia.
Crowdfunding is a tool that engages a large number of individuals to provide small - medium sized investments, normally through an internet platform. Funds are typically donations that do not have to be repaid, but sometimes, funds are provided as loans that do require repayment.
Donors often recieve "rewards" for their donation, for example, a unique experience or branded merchandise. Investors providing loan capital typically agree to below-market rates of interest and sometimes also recieve rewards.
Crowdfunding
Loans
Services
Considerations
Books, t-shirts, water bottles, curricula, posters, magnets, toys, hats, bags, survey log books, species identification guides, anything with your logo!
Are you currently providing educational resources for free that are highly valued by participants?
Do you have a marketable logo / brand that people would wear with pride?
Do you have the capacity to partner with other businesses to create, market, and distribute goods?
Description
Relevance to GBR Citizen Science
Examples
Resources
Some online merchants offer services to non-profits to create branded gear, for example Cafe Press and Shopify offer the ability to create your own online store that does not require up-front purchasing and warehousing of goods.
Description
'Services' are intangibles provided by people.
Examples
Leading clients on an eco-expedition or providing an educational course.
Resources
Partnering with an existing service provider is a smart idea if selling services is new for your organisation. Check out CoolAustralia.org for some great ideas about fun curriculum resources. Consider partnering with a childcare service provider, for example PCYC, if you want to reach young children. For a tourism-related service, consider partnering with a certified ecotourism operator through Ecotourism Australia. Learn about existing ecotourism experiences in which people pay to be involved in citizen science, for example, a weeding tour on Lord Howe Island.
Relevance to GBR Citizen Science
EDUCATION
In addition to selling products as discussed above, education can be sold as a service for cost-recovery or profit-seeking initiatives. For example, training a scuba diver on a data collection technique, when valued by the diver, could be offered as a priced service. As another example, teaching school children about the ecosystem might be offered as a pay-to-attend class after school or in school holidays.
TOURISM
Citizen science projects can be exciting ecotourism experiences. Your organisation may be able to package, market, and provide an experience that both achieves your mission and collects revenue from paying customers.
Considerations
Do you have the staff capacity - in time and expertise - to offer new services, or hire / subcontract new staff?
Do you have a marketable experience that people would pay for?
Do you have liability insurances, or could you partner with another business or organisation to cover liabilities associated with services?
Corporate sponsorships, also termed corporate partnerships, are business deals wherein a company invests money into a non-profit organisation and the company receives measurable benefits and the non-profit receives capital. Contrary to common perception, corporate sponsorships are not philanthropy. Companies expect an indirect financial benefit from their investment.
Sponsorship funding is often a component of a company’s marketing budget, which is intended to grow a business. Successful sponsorships find alignment between the target company’s marketing objectives and the non-profit’s social or environmental objectives.
Rather than trying to sell a company on non-profit objectives, non-profits should learn about the company’s target demographics, marketing strategy, and business growth areas, and try to find overlaps with the non-profit’s target audiences and geographies. Start by selecting industries based on overlap of target markets and objectives. Which companies want access to your non-profit membership and is willing to pay for that access? Once a few potential companies are identified, relationships need time to develop. Cold calls don’t normally work! Expect it to take 9-12 months to develop and sign a corprorate sponsorship in Australia (per Abbey Clemence, Managing Director of Infinity Sponsorships).
Just as a sponsorship deal must align with a company’s objectives, the deal must also align well with the non-profit’s objectives. It takes the whole organisation to deliver on the business benefits, so the whole organisation must be committed to the partnership. There may be concerns or resistance from some of the staff, members, or Board members to accept corporate dollars. Careful strategy, with whole-of-organisation support, is critical to move forward.
A good corporate sponsorship strategy includes quantifiable business benefits (also called return on investment or ROI), sufficient time and capacity to develop and maintain relationships, and safeguards in place to minimise the risk of mission drift. Companies aim to achieve a high ROI for their marketing dollars. The common Australian benchmark is 4:1, meaning 4 dollars in directly-attributable profits for every one dollar spent on corporate sponsorships. Companies want access to your members: they want to be able to reach and advertise their product(s) directly to your followers through ads and/or product sampling. By enabling this access, the company can grow its business, and re-invest some of those profits back into the non-profit organisation.
Description
Relevance to GBR Citizen Science
Citizen science non-profit organisations often have strong brands that appeal to corporations that want to present themselves as environmentally-friendly and pro-community. It is important for each organisation to understand the industries and types of businesses whose market overlaps with the organisation's reach (membership, volunteers, advocates, etc).
Resources
Successfully creating a corporate sponsorship requires strong professional networks of partners and specific expertise by organisational staff.
Start with business and industries that your organisation has existing, long-term, trusting relationships with. Ask them what their needs are and research their marketing strategies and target demographics.
Consider participating in a professional development course on corporate sponsorships, for example Pro Bono Australia offers several paid webinar training options, Infinity Sponsorships is a Queensland-based firm offering online and downloadable resources, and Criterion Conferences offers trainings in Sydney.
There are numerous online learning resources for corporate sponsorships, and while they may offer good learnings and tips, keep in mind that most were written for the United States of America context and tax code. Look for Australia-specific resources, including articles in Fundraising & Philanthropy Australia Magazine and Pro Bono Australia email newsletters.
Considerations
Do you have the staff capacity - in time and expertise - to build and maintain relationships with corporations?
Are corporate partnerships supported or concerning to your Board and staff?
Do you have a strategy in place for managing reputational risks?
Description
Relevance to GBR Citizen Science
Resources
Crowdfunding campaigns work best for causes that can be easily marketed to the public, for example, activities that directly save an endangered species. It is more difficult to use crowdfunding for activities such as database development, obscure or technical research, etc. With good marketing, many citizen science activities could attract crowdfunding capital.
There are hundreds of internet platforms that support crowdfunding campaigns, but not all of these are available to non-profits operating outside of the USA. In Australia, the most frequently used platforms include OzCrowd, IndieGoGo, VentureCrowd (loans), Chuffed, and MyCause. The platforms enable you to post information about your campaign and collect funds, but typically the marketing of the campaign still requires a campaign manager to spread the word via social media and other distribution channels.
For a class on crowdsourcing, consider The Fundraising Authority ($77 for 4 weeks online).
Considerations
Do you have a project, objective, or brand with high appeal to a non-specialist audience?
Do you have tangible rewards that you can offer at a low cost to the organisation?
Is the return on investment likely to be favourable?
What is the government's current priorities, funding availability, political will?
Does your data / service / capacity fill an unfunded priority?
Do you collect data in a manner that the government can easily use them?
Would the outputs of your activities improve government management of the Great Barrier Reef through a pathway that is readily articulated and measured?
Could your organisation add addtional activities to your existing surveys to better meet government needs?
Considerations
Relevance to GBR Citizen Science
Citizen science organisations provide monitoring and educational services that could meet the objectives of government agencies. If there is sufficient overlap in geographies, techniques, species of interested, etc, there may be a possibility for the government agency to contract the non-profit organisation for specified activitues, data or reports, or other capacities.
Resources
Learn more about the current government priorities and methods:
Reef Integrated Monitoring and Reporting Program
Description
Fee-for-service contracts are legal agreements between a service provider and an entity that is paying for a service. Often, these contracts are between a government agency (funder) and a non-profit organisation (service provider). Contracts are not the same as grants; organisations are paid based on pre-determined outcomes, deliverables, and timeframes.