As the Team gets very limited financial support outside friends, family and a very small band of loyal sponsors, there is constant pressure on the Team to raise money to help fund training and attend races and competitions.

 

Being that this is also the run up to an Olympic year has also put additional pressure on the Team funds to ensure that our elite athletes get the maximum exposure to high quality training and competitive situations.

 

As the squad is spread across the whole of the UK and beyond, it makes it difficult to organise large fundraising events or co-ordinate a series of local campaigns to generate funds, that's why British Nordic thought that crowd funding would be an ideal opportunity to harness our strong social media network.

 

We partnered Crowdfunder UK to launch our Sochi Olympic appeal and we were taken aback by the response.  Within 1 week, we had raised over £2,700 and we were fully funded towards our target of £5,000 with over 2 weeks left of our original 42 day campaign.

 

It’s a difficult one to gauge as we knew that we needed £10,000 towards our training programme but the way crowd funding works is that if you don’t hit your target, you don’t get any money.

 

Therefore, we pitched the target at £5,000 with a package of rewards for our backers including buffs, hoodies and jackets.  We're delighted to have received backing to the tune of £7,705 and crowd funding is something we will look to do again in the future to support our other youth and junior athletes when they have to compete on the international stage.

 

In addition, the publicity that the Crowd funding appeal created in terms of support and coverage from the media, generated further interest and funding opportunities that the Team will benefit from both immediately and longer term.

 

Crowd funding is definitely something that worked for the Team and has helped immensely towards our Sochi preparation as we push for a strong performance at the Games.