All is Good: A Yorkshire Success Story

Our collaboration with the team at All is Good resembled more of a partnership than a client relationship. On one hand we were able to help All is Good smash their campaign goal and raise £25,250. On the other hand, we were able to learn a lot about how we can best help founders with their crowdfunding campaigns. With this inaugural campaign we have started to validate our hypothesis that crowdfunding is a genuine alternative source of capital for small businesses. Furthermore we managed to get some more evidence to suggest that the benefits to small businesses of crowdfunding go beyond the capital raised.

The Campaign

We first met Karen through Rachel Castell of OurPledge, who we'd come across when researching crowdfunding, specifically in the context of sustainable small businesses. We could tell immediately that Karen and her team were passionate about what they were doing and that they had a clear vision for the future of All is Good. They planned to raise £18,000 to refurbish their store, focusing on expanding its refillable section and enhancing its zero-waste offerings.

After several meetings with Karen to craft her campaign narrative, structure her rewards offering, determine a suitable marketing strategy and understanding how we could best support her throughout the campaign with tech improvements, we were ready to launch her campaign. As part of this campaign, we also launched our POS integration, which in this case allowed All is Good to seamlessly offer in-store credit as a reward. This is just one example of how we were able to validate some of the features we have been working on.

Prior testing and platform improvements allowed us to launch smoothly on the 12th of June 2023. The campaign was off to a fiery hot start reaching 25% of the target raise amount within 9 days, but as expected pledges started to slow down. With 10 days to go, All is Good were only two thirds of the way to their target, requiring another £6000 in pledges to reach their target. With one final marketing push and a heartfelt call to action from Karen, Penistone locals and a couple of generous big donors rallied behind All is Good, pushing them over the finish line with only a few days to go.

What we Learned

• POS integration is very useful. Not only did the POS integration make it easier for Karen to track and deliver on her rewards, but it also made the shopping experience for customers much smoother. Post campaign Karen told us that frequent shoppers were asking if they could have an account with All is Good that they could top up and then spend in store which we did not expect.
• In-person pledging is powerful in smaller communities. Penistone has a small population of around 20,000 people. As All is Good is a physical store, we expected that most of the pledges would come from the local community. What we didn't necessarily predict was that there would be serious demand for in person pledges due to the older-skewing demographic. QR codes didn't cut it and so we would develop an easier in person pledging option for future brick and mortal campaigns such as a physical pledge puck.
• Insights into pledger psychology. We observed that the majority of the pledging during the campaign occurred at the beginning and towards the end of the campaign, with a pledging lull during the middle period. What we observed is supported by academic papers on the topic, with the explanation being that pledgers are more enthusiastic for campaigns at the beginning because it is fresh and towards the end if the campaign is close to the target because they feel like they are having a material impact. As such, for future clients we will be advising them to try and front load pledgers through pre campaign marketing and exclusive launch incentives so that they can bring the target raised % as high as possible, in as short a time as possible.
• Crowdfunding value beyond capital raised. Aside from the capital raised, we found that the crowdfunding campaign was an amazing PR and marketing opportunity for All is Good. All is Good was featured in close to 10 online media publications, included in physical local newspapers, made it on local radio and even a brief mention on Sky News, not to mention the extensive support on social media which shared their mission far and wide. This led to several cases of people coming out of their way to visit All is Good when they otherwise would have never visited Penistone.

The Outcome

The success of the campaign allowed Karen and All is Good to implement their much desired store upgrades, turning All is Good into an even greater sustainability hub than it already was. Seeing the campaign succeed was immensely rewarding for us at Crowd0, but then to watch the money raised be put to work was a truly surreal experience. The crowdfunding campaign had actually worked! It had positively impacted an albeit small but important part of the world, small businesses. Without small businesses like All is Good and the dedicated people that run it: Karen, Leanne and the rest of the All is Good team, our highstreets would be a very different and much less vibrant place.

Our success with All is Good is just the beginning. At Crowd0, we are more determined than ever to continue supporting purpose-driven small businesses. Our platform is not just a funding mechanism; it's a community builder, a marketing tool, and a means to empower businesses to realize their vision while maintaining their values. We are incredibly grateful to Karen and the All is Good team for their trust in us, to Rachael from OurPledge for her invaluable insights and collaboration, and most importantly, to the community that believed in and supported this campaign. If you are interested in growing your small business with crowdfunding, please reach out to us at info@crowd.xyz to book in a free discovery call.