Here is the first of many Thundafund.com Throwback success stories for A to Z AmaZing South African Women – Modjaji Books crowdfunded to generate capital to publish A to Z of Amazing South African Women in 2017.
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“Our Thundafund.com campaign for the A to Z of Amazing South African women has been a huge success. We raised the tipping point money in a few days and broke through our dream goal a few days before the end. We were fortunate in that our team brought different skills and we were all equally committed to making the campaign work.
The video that we put together was simple and direct and strong, and addressed the reasons that we saw for encouraging people to join the campaign. We were lucky we had the skills in our team to make the video.
Raising funds to publish the book has helped us not only with funds for the book, but created a community of people who care about the book. Lots of people shared pictures on social media of their rewards when they got them, and we were able to re-share these. The Thundafund.comcampaign has been a continued marketing resource even weeks after our campaign closed.
The book itself was suited to a crowdfunding campaign as it features and celebrates a wide range of women. The book is beautiful, the images are gorgeous and in it we recognise women who have been ground breaking, bad-ass and have made waves in their field of endeavour. A book such as this is necessary in a country where we have high rates of rape and domestic violence. The book offers a counter-narrative to the one of being a victim and encourages women and girls to view themselves as having agency.
I think we got our rewards right, there were possibilities for support along a scale from very small – postcards (R100), a book (R250), buying one for yourself and one for someone else less fortunate (R500), as well as some bigger rewards. We had over 150 backers and we were fortunate that the campaign was widely shared. I think that people felt it was something that they could get behind, we offered them something that they wanted (the book) and we offered them an opportunity to be generous – buying a book for someone else. We received media attention for the campaign from the social media shares. And Exclusive Books promoted the book for Women’s Day, it is a best seller at the Book Lounge in Cape Town, and we heard this week that Exclusive Books has selected it for their Christmas List promotion. All in all we are grateful to Thundafund, to our supporters and readers. We are delighted to have been able to bring this book into the world.” (Colleen Higgs. 2017)
https://www.thundafund.com/project/amazingsawomen
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