What is crowdgranting?
Successful crowdgranting projects leverage support from their community to receive grant dollars, and the community acts as the final review committee.
Patronicity was founded in 2013 in Detroit, Michigan. Our founders saw the opportunity crowdfunding offered as a catalyst for placemaking and community development in their city. Crowdfunding democratized access to capital, empowered communities to champion their own sustainable development, and allowed residents to support projects that mattered most to them.
Then, our founders had an idea to differentiate us from all other crowdfunding platforms: the matching grant. We coined it as crowdgranting. Although the matching grant is not a new concept for traditional granting organizations, which often require organizations to raise a certain amount of funds in order to receive matching grant dollars, this was the first time matching grant dollars had been paired with crowdfunding.
Since 2013, Patronicity has partnered with private and public sector partners to distribute matching grants to small businesses, municipalities, and nonprofit organizations across the United States.
Crowdgranting Defined
Crowdgranting is our unique model that combines crowdfunding with a matching grant from one of our partners. If an approved crowdfunding project reaches its goal, the project will receive a matching grant to further the project’s impact on the community. Successful crowdgranting projects leverage support from their community to receive grant dollars and the community acts as the final review committee.
Grant funding provides a powerful catalyst and can double, or even triple, the financial resources available for a project. Grant funding can also validate a project and expand its impact and reach, creating community consensus and long-term community support.
Where do the grant dollars come from?
We have worked with numerous public and private sector partners, ranging from state agencies to nonprofit organizations, to distribute grant dollars to qualifying crowdgranting projects since our founding. Our crowdgranting programs have created a more equitable funding process for our partners by reaching areas of communities that have previously not had access to grant funding.
We are experts in grant management, helping organizations to build capacity and increase their community impact. Our crowdgranting programs support community-based placemaking initiatives and small business funding. Our team is excited to work with partners to develop programs that meet the unique needs of their community.
Our crowdgranting partners receive an expedited granting process with detailed metrics reporting from an online dashboard. This means our partners’ funding goes farther, reduces overhead costs, and supports capacity building.
We support partners with…
- Grant Management
- Data Management
- Project and Program Reporting
- Fund Disbursement
Who is eligible to receive crowdgranting dollars?
Nonprofits, municipalities, community organizations, small businesses, and sometimes even individuals are eligible to receive matching dollars depending on each partner’s unique crowdgranting requirements.
Participating organizations see patrons incentivized to give with a matching grant because they know their dollars will go even further to support their community. This model also lessens the stress on organizations because they have less money to raise to reach their goal.
Our supportive process creates more opportunities for organizations. With one-on-one project coaching, first time fundraisers can learn and implement tried and true fundraising techniques with guidance and resources from Patronicity.
We support communities with…
- One-On-One Project Coaching
- Crowdfunding Strategy
- Placemaking Strategy
Crowdgranting Success
Our crowdgranting model has been successful from the start. Since 2013, our partners have matched over $21.1 million raised by community-driven crowdfunding campaigns.
In 2021, our crowdfunding campaigns saw a 91% success rate, far outperforming the average crowdfunding campaign success rate of 22.4%, according to Fundera.
Interested to learn more?
- Send us an email. If you or your organization are looking for ways to transform your grantmaking approach, we’d love to talk to you about our crowdgranting model. Contact us today at info@patronicity.com.
- Discover crowdgranting projects in action. Use our Discover Projects page to see crowdgranting programs and projects in action! Sort for projects near you or by sponsored programs.
