Have you ever had a friend share their business link with you and you don’t know what to do with it? Have you ever found yourself in a tight position where you are not able to support a business, and wonder what next to do? Here are three ways you can support them.

1. Donate

Small business owners and creatives love what they do and are passionate about what they believe in. Often, they start crowdfunding campaigns to get them to where they need to be. This is why funding them with as much as you can, can go a long way. Set aside as much as you can spare for that friend with a crowdfunding campaign, and make sure to donate. Funding may help them to get that machine they’ve been longing for to be more effective at preparing orders. Funding could also get them a means to hire help or even get more funding. You never know; that little you give, goes a long way to get them their dream.

2. Buy a Reward

Crowdfunding is a great way to pilot products that are not yet in the market. It’s an easy cost effective way to test the market, as entrepreneurs don’t necessarily need to have the products ready before they begin to sell. For you as the funder, you get to buy an awesome untried and unique product, to which you can offer feedback on and help improve the product.

For the entrepreneur, that feedback goes a long way into refining the product for a wider market range. This means that your feedback can be used to suit a larger market. What great way to know that you were part of the great journey to a great product?

Moreover, entrepreneurs tend to innovate, adding unique spins on the things they offer in order to keep customers returning. This means, the products you’ll see at a small business’ campaign are usually more personalized, and unique items that you won’t see in the big-box stores. You also get special memberships and great discounts when buying through a crowdfunding campaign

3. Share the Campaign

There are times when a link is shared with you to fund a campaign or buy a product but you are not in a position to do either. Then this step is going to be really easy for you.

By supporting a small business, through sharing their link, you are giving them more chances to be funded or to be known. It’s sort of like soft marketing. The publicity they’ll gain from the link share, will bring more people to their campaign and thus will more likely lead them to get funded.

Sharing a campaign is easy and it costs you less. It could be retweeting their link, reposting their posts, or even forwarding their WhatsApp message to your story, or even telling other people about it. Remember, small-business owners treasure the relationships they have with all of their customers and friends. They rely on friends, family and customers to not only help them earn a profit but also to spread the word to others about their company. 

Conclusion

Elon Musk once said that it is high time we start holding business showers just as much as baby showers. We need to come together and celebrate each other’s businesses, and art, by funding them, trying out their products or even sharing about their businesses with our networks.

It’s important to remember that small businesses and creatives play a major role in supporting the overall economy and their local communities. From providing a hometown feel for localities to working hard to know their neighbors, these small companies do a lot to help others who live nearby in many different ways.

When it comes to showing your support for small businesses, it’s important to do so, and not just to help them gain revenue and stay operational. Everything from the local clothing boutique to the corner cupcake bakery relies on the support of loyal customers to keep its doors open, and when you spend money at a small business, you’ll gain plenty of wonderful benefits as well.

If you would like to see which campaigns you can donate, buy a reward from or share, head out to Thundafund.com.