“Do you mean something like crowd-funding”? This is the question that has been asked to us the most by our friends, when we told them about our idea. We imagine that you also might have the same question because, since you are reading these lines, Co-Fund has probably caught your attention.
Well, the short answer is “well, kind of… but not exactly”!
Crowd-funding is surely the most prevalent way for alternative, grassroots funding. The belief in the strength of the solidarity of many, the bypassing of bank lending and the avoidance of investors who seek profit – rather than the substantial support of people in order to fulfill an idea or a need – are things that inspire us.
But the strengthening and dissemination of SSE in Greece, where the problems of poverty, unemployment and bad working relations are acute, there is need for something more. So, we came up with the idea of community-funding: the creation of a permanent community of SSE ventures and supporters.
In crowd-funding, a supporter usually contributes only once in a specific productive or artistic venture he or she is interested in, without further engagement. On the contrary, with community-funding, we attempt to shape a long-term solidarity relation between SSE supporters, so that we can contribute to the funding and further growth of SSE ventures – that is, to the dissemination of a more democratic economy, with dignifying jobs, respect for the environment, etc. – together.
The goal of community-funding is the creation of a financial resource for the SSE, through the collection of subscriptions from its participants. The duration of the subscription, obviously, depends on the will and capacity of each subscriber. Our intent, though, is that every subscription, if possible, will be of a permanent nature, for a number of reasons:
- First of all, because our ambition is to make the growth of the financial resource in a visible timeframe a realistic scenario, that will enable us to break the barrier of a few thousand euros micro-funding;
- secondly, because we prefer the subscriber updated and engaged in a decision making process about our funding policy in the future;
- thirdly, because in this way we promote a more collective path that opposes mainstream, self-centric economic habits.
With your participation in the Co-Fund community, we can make a difference!
