The Ocean Project has been helping to promote and coordinate World Oceans Day since 2002. We achieved a major success when, in late 2008, as a result of a three-year international petition drive we led, the UN officially recognized June 8th as an international day of ocean celebration! Now, to make World Oceans Day grow to the level of Earth Day, but globally, we need help developing a crowdfunding campaign. The goal of this campaign will be to raise funds to greatly enhance our coordination of World Oceans Day; we could use guidance for choosing our funding platform, framing the ask, outreach strategies, and suggestions for donation rewards.

We have a fairly large community to work with to raise funds. Last year we registered 600 World Oceans Day events celebrated at zoos, aquariums, museums and other organizations in 40 countries, we have a Facebook page with almost 14,000 fans, a Twitter account with almost 11,000 followers, and a huge reach leading up to June 8th. Through our growing global network we should be able to get additional outreach support, and also pursuing leads for securing a major behind-the-scenes donor to ensure we actually reach our Kickstarter (or whichever platform we use) goal. Up until now, The Ocean Project has not been able to devote significant resources to World Oceans Day. Significant additional funding would allow World Oceans Day to grow far beyond what we’ve previously been able to achieve—with dedicated funding we can take the worldwide celebration to a new level! We believe that this project would be an amazing opportunity for a professional to help with for many reasons. The Ocean Project is a small, nimble organization. We’re very easy to work with and get things done quickly due to lack of bureaucracy. World Oceans Day itself is a great professional opportunity: it’s growing exponentially every year and it’s a great cause with passionate volunteers around the world making it happen. Being part of something so special with potential to become really huge has had a great effect on us here at The Ocean Project, and we think you would love it too.

In 1997 Crowdfunding was unheard of. Then a UK rock band called Marillion used it to outwit industry music labels, asking fans to underwrite a tour with small donations in exchange for first dibs on their new cd. Now it’s a familiar fundraising tool that even the President of the United States puts to good use. But it’s not as easy as it looks, requiring a motivated online support base and a carefully mapped out marketing strategy. One of our pro bono experts can help you design and implement a plan that works.

Professional

• A thorough understanding of Crowdfunding strategy.
• Experience creating and executing a Crowdfunding campaign.

Organization

• Social media accounts like Facebook and Twitter active and in place.
• A good sized, motivated online community via social media (Facebook, Twitter) and email lists.
• A clear, realizable campaign objective. Crowdfunding is best utilized for concrete objectives (i.e. funds to build a playground rather than general operational support).
• A compelling short video or photo slideshow to include in the campaign or the technical and creative ability as well as available staff time to develop.


Note: Creation of video/photo slideshow is not included in this project although professional may advise on good strategies.