“Really enjoyed the session, Jo was really engaging, which is especially hard online. I felt a lot of confidence in her knowledge.”
“Well paced, friendly, encouraging and took time to listen. Knows her subject well.”
“A real thorough training from start to finish in giving a real understanding in crowdfunding”
“Jo Breeze was really approachable and knowledgeable about her field and actively delivering the type of projects she described. That’s the best kind of teacher.”
“I really liked Jo. She knew her stuff and moved through the course at a good pace.”
“Jo’s enthusiasm kept the session lively and it went forward at about the right pace.”
“Jo was upbeat throughout both sessions – showing respect for each member of the group throughout.”
“Jo covered everything I could think of – and was very willing to go the extra mile in terms of adding detail at any point where it was requested.”
Course via Arts Fundraising & Philanthropy
I would not consider doing this again without you. The consistency of the advice and the support was so valuable. Some of my preconceptions about what are the most important elements of a campaign were wrong – being told [what to focus on] flicked a switch in my head and enabled me to take a wider view of the campaign. Without your help I don’t think we would have achieved our goal as I would have been focused on the wrong things.
Josh Breslaw
The level of planning required to get rewards set up, line up stakeholders and do communications strategies is so crucial to a successful campaign, and that was really reinforced by working with Jo. We realised a crowdfunding campaign is about bringing all your stakeholders on a journey: from identifying who your audience is and what they want to support, to our very first campaign planning session where we harnessed the enthusiasm of our staff and volunteers, to creating advocates and donors across a range of areas.
As a result of our campaign, we have created a community of advocates who are excited about the Museum’s collection and future plans. The success of the crowdfunding campaign also inspired our trustees into becoming committed advocates, confident in asking for donations from friends, family and colleagues. Asking for help can be one of the most powerful tools.
Katherine McAlpine, Director
Jo is absolutely incredible. If you are considering doing any form of crowdfunding, you need Jo by your side. period! She is not only incredibly lovely to work with, but also has a way of breaking mammoth-size tasks into small manageable steps that anyone can follow. Thanks to Jo’s help I have not only reached my goal but exceeded it by 34%! I am so grateful to Jo and simply can’t recommend her enough.
Maya Youssef
I got 150% return on my investment; you’re lovely and very good at what you do. Most of our backers were not friends nor family of mine and I am sure that without your help I would’ve never reached any of them, so to put it simply the campaign would’ve failed without you. I would’ve never thought about approaching LatAm businesses if you hadn’t suggested it and even if you had I’d been too scared to approach them without you almost literally holding my hand through it. Connecting with them was one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. Thank you.
Ana Torre
It was just so good to have someone with experience and that I trusted immediately to ask questions, run my ideas past and help me to refine them. On our call every week I took at least one big thing away. Things like how to approach the stretch goal. And it gave me the impetus to just keep going. As well as keeping me sane, your support 100% helped optimise the campaign, and the decisions you helped me make meant we had more backers and ££. Having it overfunded by 50% hopefully validates the product/market fit and gives us some money to over print and really get the business off to a flying start.
Sophie Cross
I was happy with the project story and materials I’d created but feared we wouldn’t get it in front of enough pairs of eyes! An experienced consultant to help strategise and then create effective assets is very valuable. In my case celebrity/influencer endorsement didn’t translate to many backers; with a niche product like mine you need to communicate on a deeper level with the ‘true fans’. It’s not a volume game. The most useful thing I learned was the frequency and variety of ways one needs to talk about the campaign in the different stages – and the most significant outcome was simply that it got over the line and we were able to manufacture our run of DVDs. It was a straightforward goal and we succeeded!
Andy Dunn, filmmaker
Your campaign strategy and guidance made me feel so secure, your documents were so user-oriented and clear, the pace (while hectic) was clearly laid out and enabled me to run a team to whom both I and the workload was new: you made it feel for all of us like the mountain was a manageable one to climb. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. As a non-synchronised & part-time team, we needed to find a way to be consistent and make an impact with the campaign, without overloading anyone and while also not wasting the fundraising opportunity. Your documents and guidance were invaluable, the templates really helped visualise what was in the main a lot of anxious overthinking on my part, and your overview of the structure of each week of the campaign was just – well, amazing.
Matilda James, Citizens of the World Choir
The most useful thing we learned was how to drive those algorithms! We got everyone sharing and liking and retweeting at the same time – our first announcement on Twitter got over 250,000 reach and earned us nearly 3,000 new visits to our profile. We learned not to be shy about our influencers’ support (including getting a boost from some high profile names with significant followings) and with that first burst of attention we became no 2 in our cohort and in the top line of the Aviva page all month, which I think helped us get noticed for the Lord Mayor’s extra Back to Business funding of 5K. It has been a real confidence-builder to smash our target AND gain extra funding. We are really happy with the result, and we can see how key preparation and timing is, as well as how many people we all know when we come together!
Tess Berry-Hart, Citizens of the World Choir
The most significant outcome of our campaign was probably the new contacts we cultivated. We wouldn’t have made it without Jo’s help; to begin with we weren’t sure about the schedule, the tone, or how to ask people for money without begging, but she provided clear, concise information that helped us time it and pitch it right.
Helen Turner, E-Werk Luckenwalde
