By: Jenna Hahn; November 18, 2014
On Thursday, November 13 Big Ideas winners launched the first-ever partnerships with the world’s most established crowdfunding platform: Indiegogo. This was created as a new opportunity for past winners to expand their ideas and reach a greater audience. The encouragement Big Ideas staff provides is not meant to end after teams win. Every year Big Ideas searches for new ways to help past winners uncover appropriate ‘next steps’ for their product, service, or organization to continue on their own.
According to an internal study from the Blum Center for Developing Economies, which manages Big Ideas, the contest’s 400-plus student teams and award winners have gone on to secure over $35 million in additional funding. This opportunity aims to allow teams to increase that number and impact even more.
Indiegogo has proven their success in empowering campaigners since Cal Alumni founded the platform in 2008. They offer a range of tools and resources to support campaigners in strategies throughout the entire process.
This new opportunity was announced at last May’s award ceremony, immediately sparking the interest of many teams. Throughout the fall past wining teams were invited to apply to participate in the Big Ideas partner page.
The 7 teams are all past winners that are now working independently of Big Ideas, outside of UC Berkeley, to scale up their projects and impacts. For the past month teams have been tirelessly building elements of their campaign and preparing marketing schemes. Campaigns will run from November 13 through December 20, 2014.
Teams benefit from discounts on Indiegogo transaction fees, receive personalized guidance from the Indiegogo Cause Team, and gain access to the extensive Big Ideas network interested in social challenges.
To view the different campaigns, please visit https://www.indiegogo.com/partners/BigIdeas
This year’s participating crowdfunding campaigns include:
100 Strong – Empowering Young Female Leaders
Emmunify: A tool to save lives with vaccination
Energant: Burn Trash to Cook Food and Generate Elecricity
Speech with Sam: Helping kids in speech therapy
Suitcase Clinic: Art to Heart
The Transfer Service Community- TSC
The U.C. Vision Project