Eligibility Criteria

The applicant:

To be eligible to apply, applicants must:

- Have participated in the Digital Boost Begin programme;
- Identify as female;
- Be over 18 years old;
- Be UK based;
- Have a new business idea;
- Match funding is not open to employees of NatWest Group of companies, their families or anyone associated with this competition;
- You don’t have to be a NatWest Group customer to apply.

The project:

- Must be UK based
- Must be either majority (50-100%) owned or controlled by women and/or woman-led (a woman must be responsible for the day-to-day decision making)
- Must have a target of at least £2,000
- Must be a new trading activity i.e. not growing an existing business venture. However, it can be a hobby that has been operating for a period of time but has not yet crossed the annual £1,000 turnover per annum tax threshold at the point of application If the project is already set up as a registered business or organisation (e.g. limited liability company, charity or social enterprise) then it must not have crossed the annual £1,000 turnover per annum tax threshold at the point of application
- Must launch within 4 weeks of notification of a successful application

Corporate structure

The corporate structure of the businesses doesn’t matter; participants can choose to set up as a partnership, a limited company, a charity, a social enterprise or a sole trader.

Project owners must satisfy the due diligence checks carried out by Crowdfunder. This includes for example: filling in details of their registered address and providing a form of photo ID to verify their identity, and details of the bank account where the money will be transferred.=

There is no guarantee that a project will successfully crowdfund. Any funds received through crowdfunding must go to supporting the business idea detailed on the crowdfunding page.

Your Crowdfunder Wallet must be registered using an account that matches the personal or business details provided in your crowdfunding project.

How to apply

Applicants for match funding are open to participants of the Digital Boost Begin Programme. To be considered, you must:

- create a project on Crowdfunder and apply through the Crowdfunder platform.

Applications will be reviewed alongside project pages. Please consult our guide to learn how to create a strong project page.

An optional workshop to go through how to create a good project, will be held prior to applications being opened. Date and time to be communicated to those who take part in Begin. 

Eligibility for Match Funding:

If your application is successful, your project will be eligible for match funding of up to £1,000. See below for details on Match Funding Criteria

If your application is not successful, you can still run your crowdfunding campaign on Crowdfunder, but it will not be eligible for match funding.

Selection process

All projects that meet the criteria set out above will be assessed to determine which projects will be selected for the match funding. Project owners will be notified whether their application has been successful or not. The offer of match funding will be valid for [4] weeks after the date of notification, if you do not launch your crowdfunding campaign within this period, the offer will be rescinded.

Match Funding will be awarded to participants who demonstrate the strongest crowdfunding campaigns. This includes, but is not limited to, the quality, clarity, and creativity of their crowdfunding page, as well as the strength and feasibility of their promotional strategy. While applications may be approved to take part in the match funding programme, match funding will only be granted to those who also meet the minimum eligibility criteria detailed below. Final decisions will be based on the overall potential to successfully engage backers and support the growth of their business.

Live match funding

The following criteria applies to live match funding:
a) All Pledges made by supporters will be matched pound for pound up to £50. This means that if a Project receives a Pledge of £20, ‘She Begins’ will donate £20. If a Project receives a Pledge of £100, ‘She Begins’ will donate £50.
b) The maximum live match funding a Project can receive from ‘She Begins’ is £1,000
c) Live match funding will be given on the first pledge made to a Project by a supporter.
d) Projects must reach their project target by the end of their initial fundraising period to receive live match funding. If the project fails to reach 100% of the target the live match funding will be cancelled.
e) Pledges will not be matched where a project is “always on”.
f) Your project must receive pledges from at least 25 unique backers.
g) The following Pledges will not be matched:
i) Pledges made before a Project is accepted to participate in the match funding or after a Project’s initial fundraising period ends.
ii) Second (2nd) and any subsequent (3rd, 4th, etc) pledges to the same Project by the same supporter.
iii) Pledges made by Organisations to their own Projects.
h) Live match funds will count towards your Project’s target.

Match Funding Criteria

Following approval for match funding, if you wish to make any changes to your campaign target, or any significant changes to your rewards or other page content you must notify us.

To secure match funding, you will need to do the following:

1. Apply to, and be approved for,the She Begins campaign.
2. Receive the match funding by reaching at least 100% of your fundraising target with at least 25 unique supporters*.

*To verify whether supporters are unique we will take account of information including, but not limited to: name, address, email addresses and payment card used.

If the project fails to reach 100% of the target the provisional pledge will be cancelled.

The Funding Partner reserves the right to vary these match funding criteria; projects will be notified if their match funding criteria will vary from the stated terms above.

Additional Requirements

Project Owners or the campaigning organisation pledging to their own campaign is allowed, however this should not be a significant amount unless discussed before the pledge is added. Small offline donations that have been collected may also be added, however you may be required to evidence the origin of these pledges (receipts, letters of support, copies of cheques or bank statements etc.)

Projects will be required to agree to the Terms and Conditions.