City of Wolverhampton's Residents' Programme (14 to 31 March) this week saw Crowdfund Wolves officially launched by the Deputy Mayor of Wolverhampton, Councillor Phil Page.

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More than 50 people attended the event at the Light House in the city centre, where they heard from the creator of the first city project being helped through the funding initiative, and organisers of schemes in Manchester and Leicester.

Powered by Spacehive, Crowdfund Wolves provides a single portal where people with project ideas can build support from their community, ensure their plans are viable, pitch for funding from the crowd and partners at the same time, and share the impact they have created.

At Tuesday's event, Niraj Dattani from Spacehive, gave an overview of Crowdfund Wolves and chaired a panel discussion, which included City of Wolverhampton's first project creator, Gail Reynolds.

Gail is the new Stratton St Methodist Church Community Centre co-ordinator and is aiming to develop a Digi-Space Sound & Image Studio at the Park Village centre for local young people to learn new skills.

Olly Thomas from the Box Crops Urban Farm and Kate Penman from the Good Shepherd Ministry were also in attendance. Both will be launching their projects on the Type=links;Linkid=9883;Title=Crowdfund Wolves;Target=_blank; site imminently, with several other local schemes in the pipeline.

Councillor John Reynolds, Cabinet Member for City Economy, said: "Wolverhampton has a history of pulling together - over 150 years ago the citizens of Wolverhampton 'crowdfunded' the Man on the Horse/Prince Albert statue by raising subscriptions to pay for it.

"Crowdfund Wolves is already helping connect people, ideas and support to enable city residents to turn ideas into reality and shape Wolverhampton's future.

"We want to tap into the passion and unearth more of the local talent, innovation and creativity we know exists in the city.

"Anyone can create a project idea and anyone can pledge their support to an idea."

Local people and organisations are invited to get involved with Crowdfund Wolves by submitting their projects, supporting other projects or telling their friends and neighbours about the scheme. The council has joined with the Wolverhampton Voluntary Sector Council (WVSC) to develop the platform.

Fifty two per cent of projects crowdfunded on Spacehive are successful - higher than any other platform.

For more details on Crowdfund Wolves please contact Catherine Perry or Sam Axtell by phoning 01902 552005/554918.

The Crowdfund Wolves official launch is just one of a range of free events taking place in the city from Wednesday 14 March to Saturday 31 March to support local people to get support with living, learning and working in the City of Wolverhampton. For more information please visit Type=links;Linkid=10131;Title=Live Learn Work;Target=_blank;.

  • released: Friday 23 March, 2018