Crowdfunding Therapy Angels
Last Friday an email dropped in my inbox from my domain name providers. I thought it might be important, so I opened it “We have a fund to support crowdfunding and we would like to ask you to submit a project idea.”
I dug in the bottom drawer of ideas that I keep, and pulled out the Big Idea that I’ve had ever since I opened the Amethyst Centre. I want to create a way for people who would benefit from holistic therapies but who can’t afford to pay full price for them to be able to access them. At the same time, I want the therapist to be properly recompensed for their time, experience and expertise. So I condensed it down to 140 characters and clicked “Submit”.
24 hours later, another email from the same source. “Congratulations! We like your idea and invite you to create a Crowdfunder project to get it funded, and take part in our competition.” So off I went and created the project.
The project is for £25,000. Why so much? Well, I like doing things properly. To do this properly, we need to have a ground floor therapy room, as the target group is likely to be too ill to be able to climb the 16 stairs to the Amethyst Centre, and the £25k will help us find a place, get in there, furnish it, and keep going for a year. The way the Crowdfunder is set up, we will keep everything that is pledged at the end of the 8 week period, so even if we don’t get all the money, we will still be able to subsidise treatments at the Amethyst Centre for people who meet the criteria.
There are implications for the Centre too. It would be good to set this up as a charity or social enterprise, so that we can access pots of funding that do exist and bring holistic therapies to even more people. To do this, we need at least 2 other people who are willing to form a Board of Directors or Trustees with me. So even if you can’t see your way to giving us a donation but you would like to become more involved, this gives you scope to get really hands-on with this project.
Our other friends have also been amazing. Sharon Little, who is an Access Bars practitioner, came into the Centre yesterday and made me an amazing offer for our next Open Day: she will offer full and taster treatments of Access Bars, Energetic Facelifts and Access Body Processes completely on a voluntary basis, with every penny going to the project! Wowee!
There is so much support for this idea that it might go nationwide – but first we have to start somewhere and Coventry is where I am. If you start where you are, you never know where the path might lead – but first you have to start. So I’ve started.
Here’s the link to the project. If you can donate, that would be fantastic. If you want to be a bit more hands-on with the project, please get in touch.