Thursday, May 8, 2014 Harnessing the Power of the Crowd to Fund Your Business

Crowdfunding is changing the way great ideas and businesses are launched. This workshop will provide you with an overview of the opportunities crowdfunding offers for attracting capital to your venture and the essentials you need to plan & create your own crowdfunding campaign including practical information to help you raise cash from the crowd.

This workshop is for those who are interested in using crowdfunding to help raise funds for their business, organization, or project.  It is suitable for anyone, including for-profit ventures, non-profits, and individuals wanting to test their ideas.  You will leave with an understanding of the critical campaign pieces, the tools, and knowledge you need to create your own successful crowdfunding campaign.

 What you will learn:

• Overview of Crowdfunding

• What Crowdfunding Model is Best for You

• Pre-Launch - Gathering Your Crowd & Developing the Pitch

•Making the Video

•Designing & Pricing Rewards

•Launch – Campaign Best Practices

•Post-campaign Management – Reward Fulfillment & Managing Backers

•Crowdfunding Checklists

Sally Outlaw, Co-Founder and CEO, peerbackers.com and Crowdfunding Academy, is a renowned expert in this growing and exciting way to finance a business, and she has helped thousands of entrepreneurs reach their crowdfunding goals. Her newest initiative under peerbackers, Crowdcast, takes crowdfinance stories to media outlets across the web. Crowdcast provides informative programming covering the important issues and leaders shaping the crowdfunding industry, as well as showcases entrepreneurs seeking investments. Sally is a seasoned entrepreneur having run her own businesses for the last twenty five years. Her media and business ventures took her across the globe – including ten years of conducting business in Russia. Sally is a speaker on the topic of small business financing at various universities, business incubators, and entrepreneurial events and has been a repeated source on the topic of crowdfunding for national media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones, and Forbes, among others. Her book, “Cash from the Crowd” on how to successfully crowdfund, was published fall 2013 by Entrepreneur Press.

Joining Sally will be James Carvin, Director of South Florida Crowd Funding, an organization that provides  four main functions in service to South Florida from Orlando to the Keys:

1. Education, workshops, guidance and mentoring
2. Mass Communication on behalf of qualifying crowd funding projects
3. Fundraising and direct contributions for qualifying projects
4. Mutual support of similar efforts throughout the region through common calendars and communication