Crowdfunder

Crowdfunder is a British crowdfunding platform founded in 2011 and originally headquartered in Newquay, Cornwall. It now has offices across the South West and the UK. It enables individuals, community groups, charities, and social enterprises to raise funds through rewards-based and donation crowdfunding. It is described as the United Kingdom's largest crowdfunding platform. Since Crowdfunder's founding, projects have raised over £429 million.

History

Crowdfunder was incorporated on 2 November 2011 as Crowdfunder Ltd (Companies House number 07831511).

In February 2020, Crowdfunder launched a fee-free platform for charity fundraising.

During the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, Crowdfunder served as the delivery platform for the Mayor of London's Pay It Forward London scheme. A formal mayoral decision document describes Crowdfunder Ltd as "the UK's largest crowdfunding platform" and records that the scheme raised more than £1.5 million for over 420 small businesses from more than 20,000 contributions. Crowdfunder waived its platform fees and covered transaction costs for the scheme.

In September 2020, Crowdfunder partnered with Sport England on the Active Together fund, a £1 million match-funding initiative for sports clubs affected by the pandemic. The fund was subsequently expanded with a further £5 million of National Lottery funding in September 2021, by which point it had supported 475 sports clubs raising a total of £7.1 million. Sport England has stated it has "partnered with Crowdfunder to support more than 1,000 projects".

Also in 2020, Nesta, in partnership with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Arts Council England, and the Heritage Lottery Fund, published the results of a matched crowdfunding pilot delivered on the Crowdfunder platform. The pilot provided £251,500 in match funding to 59 arts and heritage projects, which leveraged an additional £405,941 from 4,970 backers. The pilot formed part of the government's Culture White Paper and resulted in a published research report, Matching the Crowd.

In December 2023, Crowdfunder acquired CrowdJustice, described as the world's leading crowdfunding platform for legal fees, which had raised more than £35 million from over one million donors and supported 14 Supreme Court cases. At the time, Crowdfunder had raised £37.2 million in 2023 alone and more than £323 million since its founding.

In January 202 Rob Love stepped down as chief executive. Dawn Bebe and Simon Deverell were appointed as joint chief executives.

In November 2024, Crowdfunder launched the Crowdfunder Foundation, focused on poverty alleviation, nature recovery, and social enterprise growth.

In September 2025, Crowdfunder announced a partnership with Creative UK offering 0% platform fees for creative projects. Since 2020, Crowdfunder has facilitated more than £52 million in fundraising for creative and arts projects, including over £9 million for music venues through a partnership with the Music Venue Trust.

United States

In April 2026, Crowdfunder launched in the United States under the domain crowdfunder.com, initially focusing on New York City. The US platform operates as a fee-free community fundraising service for individuals, groups, and nonprofits. At launch, Crowdfunder opened applications for its "Founding 50" programme, offering 50 New York City nonprofit organisations early access to the platform alongside up to $2,500 in match funding through the Spark Fund for eight selected partners.

Platform and business model

Crowdfunder operates on a rewards-based and donation crowdfunding model. Project owners choose between an "all or nothing" model, in which funds are transferred only if the full target is reached, or a "keep what you raise" model.

Crowdfunder is a registered supplier on the UK Government's G-Cloud procurement framework, through which public sector bodies can contract its services.

Partnerships

Sport

Crowdfunder has established long-running partnerships with the sports councils of all four UK home nations. Sport England has run multiple successive match-funding programmes through the platform since 2018, including Active Together, Places and Spaces (a £7 million fund tied to the 2022 Commonwealth Games legacy), and the current Movement Fund.

Sport Wales has partnered with Crowdfunder since 2021 through its A Place for Sport fund. By September 2025, 76 clubs in Wales had raised over £1 million in total, with Sport Wales contributing £367,210 in match funding supported by more than 7,000 individual donors.

Sport Northern Ireland has operated successive crowdfunding programmes through Crowdfunder since 2021. In 2025/26, 85 projects across 15 sports received over £375,000 of National Lottery funding, with an additional £413,000 raised from the public via the platform, resulting in over £700,000 invested into grassroots sport.

British Cycling operated its Places to Ride fund through Crowdfunder from 2020 to 2023, investing more than £216,000 into cycling projects, with a further £866,000 raised from local communities. The fund formed part of the legacy programme from the 2019 UCI Road World Championships in Yorkshire.

England Netball maintains a dedicated partnership with Crowdfunder for club facility fundraising.

Arts and heritage

Crowdfunder has a multi-year partnership with Creative Scotland through the Crowdmatch Fund, which by 2026 had entered its seventh year. The programme has helped projects raise over £1.7 million in total.

Between 2016 and 2017, Crowdfunder delivered a matched crowdfunding pilot for arts and heritage projects in partnership with Nesta, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Arts Council England, and the Heritage Lottery Fund. The pilot, announced in the government's Culture White Paper, funded 59 projects and its findings were published as Matching the Crowd.

Local authorities

Crowdfunder has formal partnerships with numerous UK local authorities, typically structured as match-funding schemes tied to the Community Infrastructure Levy or other local authority funds. Confirmed active partnerships include Plymouth City Council, which over ten years pledged £1,364,141 to 190 projects through Crowdfund Plymouth; Cornwall Council, which operates multiple active funds including the Climate and Nature Fund and Social Inclusion Fund under an explicit "Crowdfunder contract"; and Portsmouth City Council, which renewed its partnership in 2022 having supported 34 projects with £105,730 in council match funding. Other confirmed partnerships include East Sussex County Council, Salford City Council, Lambeth Council, Norfolk County Council, Fife Council, Wigan Council, and Angus Council.

See also

• Crowdfunding
• CrowdJustice
• Nesta (charity)

External links

• Official website