City council announces further £180,000 available for city projects on pioneering Crowdfund Plymouth

Mayflower Autonomous Ship receives first major pledge of £15,000 and Illuminate receives £5,000 pledge - and smashes its target on pioneering City crowdfunding campaign.

Plymouth City Council and Crowdfunder today confirmed that Crowdfund Plymouth, has received a further £180,000 from the City Change Fund, to enable the Council to pledge on projects that benefit the local community in Plymouth.

Plymouth was the first city in the UK to work with Crowdfunder to launch a local crowdfunding campaign to support local projects, with Plymouth City Council and Plymouth University acting as enabling partners.

The first major recipients of a pledge from the new funds were the Mayflower Autonomous Ship (MAS) project, which is raising £100,000 as part of its plan to sail across the Atlantic in 2020 as part of the city's Mayflower 400 celebrations. MAS received a pledge of £15,000, which it will receive if it hits its crowdfunding target.

£5,000 from the new funds was pledged on the Illuminate and Thanksgiving 2016 project, which helped it today hit its target and raise £10,000 as part of the Mayflower 400 celebrations to stage a community light parade and performance.

Since launch, with an initial fund of £60,000 from Community Infrastructure Levy, the Crowdfund Plymouth campaign has raised over £989,000 for more than 140 projects in the City.

Crowdfunding is a way of raising money and support from the community around you. People pledge money for your project in return for rewards - a product, benefit or service from the project.

Deputy leader of Plymouth City Council, Councillor Patrick Nicholson said: "Crowdfund Plymouth has been a really exciting step forward in the way we distribute funds to projects in the community. It has inspired a lot of passion and enthusiasm across all kinds of projects which all help make Plymouth a great place to live, work and play in.

We are all particularly excited by The Mayflower Autonomous Ship and are delighted to help the project reach its target.  The potential benefits it offers to Plymouth in terms of education, legacy and reputation are incredible."

"It's fantastic to receive a pledge from the PCC City Change fund as part of our crowdfund," said Brett Phaneuf, Director, MSubs. "Plymouth is a fantastic place to try out new ideas working cooperatively with the community to make it happen."

"We are delighted at the success of Crowdfund Plymouth and pleased to see Plymouth City Council commit more funds for Year Two of the campaign. We encourage more projects with a great idea to come forward so we can help make them happen," said Phil Geraghty, MD, Crowdfunder.

Mel Tucker, from the Plymouth School of Creative Arts, which successfully raised over £6,000 on Crowdfund Plymouth last year said:  "The Red House Theatre Project Crowdfunder Campaign was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster ride, but ultimately a big success for us. The pledge of £2,500 from Plymouth City Council was a massive boost for us and helped to make a big target suddenly seem really achievable - which is what we then did!"

Crowdfunder launched three years ago with the support of Plymouth University. To date it has raised over £30million for projects across the UK, working with partners like Santander, Marks and Spencer and local authorities to distribute funds and make ideas happen.

To find out more about the City Change Fund please visit: http://web.plymouth.gov.uk/citychangefund