Growfunding/BXL or how to connect social network in segregated urban environments

More then ever our cities have become breeding-grounds for innovative and creative (social) projects. Yet, these innovative projects often fail to realise their ambitions. Not only due to a lack of financial support but also... [ view full abstract ]

More then ever our cities have become breeding-grounds for innovative and creative (social) projects. Yet, these innovative projects often fail to realise their ambitions. Not only due to a lack of financial support but also because they do not manage to create a social basis in the often segregated urban contexts.

The research group connected to the department of Social Werk of Odisee (Brussels) developed and successfully tested an innovative methodology to create a social and financial basis for small scale urban projects. By modifying reward-based crowdfunding into a methodology to involve a diversity of citizens into micro-initiatives in their neighbourhood, their community, their spheres of interest,... the research group developed a new kind of social infrastructure. The main objective of the platform is to pull together different social, cultural and financial networks by realising bottom-up projects of citizen, informal collectives, associations and social entrepreneurs.

The experimental crowdfunding platform, called 'Growfunding/BXL', was launched last year and has so far realised up to twenty small scale social projects and has actively involved over 2.000 people. The initiators of the project receive a free training on how to successfully manage a social crowdfunding campaign and how to create ongoing participation even after the campaign.

During the presentation, the research will go deeper into the methodology they developed and present their analyses of the results of the research project. At the end of the presentation they will explain how to implement the methodology in other cities.

www.growfunding.be