Councils and local authorities: How to choose your crowdfunding platform
by Rebecca Hughes | Jul 01, 2026 | News & Press, Stories
Not all crowdfunding platforms are built the same way. Here’s why the model behind the platform, not just the features, is what protects your programme long term.
If you’ve never run a crowdfunding programme before, you’re not alone. Plenty of councils and public sector partners are only just discovering what it can do, and the ones who get it right tend to see results that make it hard to imagine going back to funding projects the old way.
In Salford, Salford City Council’s match funding programme has backed projects raising everything from youth employment training to inclusive rugby facilities, drawing in additional funding from Sport England and other partners alongside the crowd. The Eccles RFC Rugby For All campaign raised over £36,000 to improve facilities for women and girls, with Salford City Council and Sport England both contributing alongside hundreds of individual supporters.
So the real question isn’t whether crowdfunding works. It’s: which platform should you be doing it on?
Start with your why
Community crowdfunding has become a serious tool for local authorities and funding partners across the UK. Crowdfunder’s four key benefits are:
- Stretches funds further
- Reaches new organisations
- Engages community-led spending
- Helps organisations thrive
Once you know your why, the choice of platform becomes much clearer.
Crowdfunder is built differently
Here’s the key structural difference: Crowdfunder is the only major platform built around collaborative funding. On Crowdfunder, a single project can attract funding from a council match fund, a corporate foundation, a national programme, and the crowd — all contributing to the same campaign at the same time.
This means your fund goes further. Public backing from a council acts as a signal of confidence that draws in funding from other directions too; corporate partners, foundations, and individual supporters who might never have found the project otherwise.
Second, it means the platform itself is more resilient. When funding comes from many directions rather than one institutional relationship, there’s no single point of failure. That’s not a small thing to consider when you’re choosing where to build a long-term public programme.
Crowdfunder has been doing this since 2011. Over £450 million raised. More than 100,000 funded projects. Across local authorities, national foundations, corporate partners, and communities.
Why community groups choose Crowdfunder
This matters for councils too, because the platform a community group prefers to fundraise on shapes who you’ll actually reach.
Crowdfunder is one of the best-known crowdfunding platforms in the UK, which means community groups, charities, and grassroots organisations are already there. You’re not asking people to find a niche platform; you’re meeting them where they’re already raising money.
It’s also built to be genuinely useful to the community groups using it, not just a payment processor. Project owners get access to rewards tools, a knowledge hub of fundraising guidance, and ways for local employers to get involved through employee volunteering and giving schemes. That’s the kind of platform community groups actually want to come back to. Crowdfunder is continually investing in and developing the platform to further help organisations raise funds.
What this means for local authorities specifically
We know times are tough for councils right now. Budgets are under pressure, and every programme has to justify itself. A match funding programme should be part of the answer to that — public money working harder, not a financial risk.
The numbers back this up. Cornwall Council’s average fund amplification is 4x. Plymouth’s is 2.55x. That’s the kind of return that’s hard to get from most public spending decisions.
The right platform partnership should feel like a safe pair of hands: experienced in working with public sector timelines and governance, able to bring in funding from multiple directions, and stable enough to still be there in five years.
Crowdfunder has active programmes with councils and public sector partners across the UK, from Plymouth to Salford, Cornwall to Greater London. We understand procurement, we understand sign-off processes, and we understand that community relationships built through a crowdfunding programme are genuinely valuable and worth protecting.
Thinking about your options?
Whether you’re setting up a new community crowdfunding programme or reviewing your current one, we’d love to talk.