Why Crowd Funding?

Bikes Welcome are launching a Pledge Me crowd-funding campaign on January 23rd.  Why crowd-funding?  Because of who we are, who we aren’t and what we want to do.

We aren’t a football team

Rejection get’s easier with practice.  I’ve written quite a few funding applications this year.  To focus on the positive, two were approved (thanks heaps Wellington City Council’s Communities on Bikes Fund and Wellington Community Trust).  The rest were rejected.  The reasons aren’t always given or clear but they boil down to being new and not being your stock-standard sports team or kindy.  Funder’s prefer known quantities, and many require an entity to provide at least 12 months of Financial Statements  (We were incorporated as a Charitable Trust in July 2016).

We are running on fresh air

So far all the costs of starting and running Bikes Welcome have been met by me and my husband.  We love biking and want to share that love, so I’m gladly giving my time (often 20+ hours per week) to Bikes Welcome.  We’re also meeting the costs of computers, printing, postage, online services, phone, website hosting, etc; as well as the costs of travelling to and attending the Walk2Cycle conference in July.  That is all well and good, but to really get BikesWelcome operational we need to spend a chunk money on external services like Design, Website Development and Printing.

Shout out: we are most fortunate to be recipients of pro-bono work from Alex Dyer at Flax Creative (our logo design) and Sparks Interactive (website audit).  Thanks so much for your support.

We all want to be part of something good

I heard a great quote recently: “don’t stop and wait until the chance to be great comes along, do something good now”.  We all want to be part of something good, and just need that opportunity.  Crowd-funding gives you that chance, what’s more, in puts you front and centre to be part of Bikes Welcome.  The Bikes Welcome Way is about people power: people identifying themselves as bike users and helping to make the need for bike parking known to the people who can help do something about it.  It is about giving ordinary everyday bike users the tools they need to ask effectively for something they want.  And it’s all based on the belief that good bike parking, and seeing people using their bikes will help inspire non-bike users to consider bike use as an option.

Please help us establish Bikes Welcome in New Zealand and support our Pledge Me campaign.