Friends show up for friends all the time, because as a friend that’s what you’re supposed to do when your friend needs you. It’s comes with the territory and as President Obama said: It’s law. And even though Claudia and Lydia are yet to meet in person, after nine years of being pen pals, they are most definitely friends.

The strong bond the two share is among other ways illustrated with the crowdfunding campaign Claudia started on Friendfund on Lydia’s behalf. See, in her letters to Claudia, Lydia often wrote how she would like to one day own a farm. Because she always struggled financially, she couldn’t raise enough money to buy a patch of land and go after this dream on her own. She did however manage to afford three goats through the years.

Claudia recently came to Friendfund in the hopes of expediting the process of her friend getting her wish come true. “The three goats are a good start and she takes such good care of them! I know she really wants this,” said Claudia, “And I will help her with the rest.” The German student is optimistic because a number of strangers have already contributed towards the little farm. But more money is needed.

Claudia is not too worried, though. “One day soon, I will visit Lydia on her farm. Of this I am positively sure,” she told us.

If you would like to contribute to this great cause, you can do so here.

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Here at the Friendfund headquarters we believe that when people come together big things can happen. Because there is power in numbers and two heads are smarter than one. This is the mantra of the team as well as the crowdfunding platform we are running. When we started Friendfund the goal was to become the go-to platform for already existing communities everywhere, who had a desire to do something (anything) as a group. Over the years many projects have been funded through our platform and while they could hardly be more different first glance, the types of people behind them are always the same.

Friends, families, schoolmates, beer buddies. Groups and communities from across the board coming to Friendfund to collect money for something (anything) they consider important.

So if that is the spirit of Friendfund, today’s featured pool speaks volumes in favour of communities. It was set up by a citizen of Stendal who is calling on his neighbours to help him raise money for some trees that got destroyed in a random act of vandalism during the long German winter of 2013. The 16 trees were planted in 2011 by the children from the kids club in Stendal, and it was the kids who took care of the trees when from then on out. Sadly, some people get angry at trees sometimes and hurt them for no reason at all.

But the people of Stendal are coming together to plant 5 new trees and reinforce the ones who got damaged. “We will not let ourselves be intimidated by vandalism,” proclaims their funding page. “Plant these trees and fight vandalism by making your surroundings more beautiful.”

You can donate to the Stendal pool here.

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A big chunk of the working force today works Monday to Friday to raise brand awareness of their company. Viral is the holy grail of the generation employed by the internet one that we spend chasing day in and day out, thinking very hard and creatively about what the next “Charlie bit me” can be and how can it be about us. Alongside cute kids with a British accent, anything that has to do with cats is usually a winner. Sadly some products can be tied into those two concepts more easily than others  and I think we can all agree by now that too much time has been wasted on watching cat gifs, no matter how entertaining they are.

So here’s a non-cat concept, sans cute kids: crowdfunding.

“And what can crowdfunding do for MY brand?” I hear you ask. Well, dear online marketing colleague, quite a bit, as it turns out.

For example crowdfunding is a good way to introduce your brand to your local community. Doing something nice for the blocks that surround your offices will always go across well and so will doing something nice for your employees or together with them. It will also be fantastic bate for the journos you’ve been trying to get to write about your business, as this sort of thing is not yet as commonly done as sending out PR blasts. Although since crowdfunding is on a rising trajectory, this could stand to change. And then nobody will want to write about it and you will need a new plan. So do what you do best now and move at internet speed.

Additionally, crowdfunding is a good way to get news of your product out there into the world and take it for a sort of a test ride, see how it works with your target market and whether it has the potential to achieve the blessed level of virality. All that, plus more, for the price of a bit of out-of-the-box-thinking and a nudge from your PR department.

Even in a world full of bad things happening all the time, there is a special breed of people we can count on: friends.  Also known as the family we adopt along the course of our lives, friends are legally obliged to be there for us, no  matter how irrational, emotional, or straight up crazy we’re behaving. It’s all specified in the contract a person signs when they take on the job of being a friend. Once the contract is signed there is no time left for being wishy washy, because being someone’s friend is nothing short of a serious job.

Maia Waye‘s friends are very well aware of this, which was illustrated beautifully when they got together on Friendfund to collect money in support of Maia’s art and Maia, when she came home one day to find her house had been robbed. The funding pool that raised money that helped Maia go on when she lost everything she had to her name, was one of our fastest closing pools of all times. It only took five days to complete, which apparently surpassed even the expectations of people who set it up.

“The pool creator Tina sent me the link just days after the fundraising began and it had already receached the goal she had set! It was done almost as quickly as it was put out to people,” Maia commented on the generosity of her friends.

In addition to raising money that would help Maia get back on her feet, her friends also campaigned to collect some money she could put towards her art, so she could resume with normal living as soon as possible. They took her art, put it in frames and set up a stall where Maia made her first steps back towards financial independence. “When you’re faced with difficulty your world gets pretty small for a few days until you recover from the trauma of loss. This fund was a BIG bright light to me that told me everything was going to work out and I was going to be ok,” Maia explained. “This was such a heartfelt kind gesture. I never expected people to get together and do such a wonderful thing.”

You remember Cressida and Ben, right? Of course you do! You’re probably one of the lovely people who contributed to their cause to bring proper education to the kids of Sri Lanka. They departed for their beloved country right after the closure of the “Friends for Friends” campaign, during which Cress and Ben raised 1000 EUR for their charity. This was in December. Now they’re back in the UK, hopelessly jet-lagged (as stated by themselves), but with hearts full of hope for their plan and their kids. We caught up with them to speak briefly about  all the things that happened to them, where they went, who they met, what they did and how is the school they set out to build coming along.

It turns out it was quite a trip. Between the stinky trains and cockroaches (ew.), they once again met people that will help them put their plan in motion. They hung out with the friendly locals, they held English classes for children and bought them books. They even kind of got on the Harlem Shake bandwagon. But most importantly, they put the groundwork for their school in and got the proverbial ball rolling. According to Ben, the whole experience was exhausting but incredibly rewarding and inspiring.

And what happens now?

Why, an establishment of a charity-funded teacher training scholarship for the region’s government teachers. These two are relentless, and we for one, are in awe.

Belts can hardly get any tighter for individuals as well as the city council. As unemployment goes up, the collected tax goes down and there is just not enough money in the piggy bank to pay for all the teachers, policemen and doctors, as well as fixing the wonky bridge, no matter how ugly or, perhaps in some cases, dangerous it may be. So the citizens get upset with the local government, the local government gets upset with the national government’s budgeting and in the end nobody is happy. But the bridge remains untouched, left to decay at its own pace. Womp womp.

Berlin is in no way immune to this phenomena. Actually, sprawls of warn out buildings and abandoned industrial surfaces are the cities trademark. But that doesn’t mean it has to be so forever, it just means it’s like this right now.

Across the world people are taking to crowdfunding in search of a mechanism that would help them rebuild parts of their towns and cities. There has been some scepticism voiced about this, mostly around the notion of why would people want to pay for things that should for all intents and purposes be funded by the (local) government with the tax it collects from its constituents.  But more and more people are showing up for their place of residence, contributing what they can and with that buying public bicycles, helping the less fortunate in their community, building actual bridges and so on and so forth. As examples illustrate, the sky is the limit.

So we urge you again, dear reader and a member of your community, to take action against that one thing that irks you in your place of residence and team up with your neighbours to crowdfund for it. If it’s annoying you that much, we guarantee that you are not alone in your constant state of animosity. But all change has to start somewhere, so why not start this one with you?

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1. Assume that you are loved.

2. Assume that those who love you find some kind of value in you and the things you do.

3. Assume, however, that you don’t need to be valuable in order to be worthy of love.

4. Assume that there is no one out there keeping a a tally of all your failings, ready to throw it in your face when you’re either feeling too good or too awful about yourself.

5. Assume that if anyone actually is keeping a tally of all your failings, that act says more about them then it does about you.

6. Assume that you can’t make all of the people happy all of the time; maybe not even some of the people some of the time.

7. Assume that you will, over the course of your life, sometimes anger or disappoint the people you love.

8. Assume that when this happens, it isn’t the end of the world, even if that’s what it feels like.

9. Assume that there is never an end to learning, or growing, or discovering.

10. Assume that you will always find a way out, even when all the doors slam shut and everything feels impossible.

11. Assume that sometimes earnestness and optimism can trump irony and cynicism.

12. Assume that it’s possible to recapture the way you felt when you were young, how the perfect clockwork mechanism of the universe used to leave you breathless and giddy with wonder.

13. Assume that there will always be new stories to tell, or at least new ways of interpreting old fables.

14. Assume that nothing is permanent, that someday even the sun will disappear; remember that everything we see and touch and taste is made of stars that grew and pulsed and died long before this planet ever existed.

15. Assume that you are under some kind of obligation to make the world a better place.

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It’s been ages since we last did one of these how to advice blog posts, but since so many of you still turn to our support team with questions on how to get your network of family and friends to contribute to your funding pool, we decided to answer them.  So here they are, without further ado, the 4 basic traits of any successful crowdfunding campaign.

1. Set a clearly defined target
We’ve written at length about this already, so if you fancy going through actual mathematical formulas to figure out how much you should ask for, hop over to that post. If you don’t want to do that however, here’s the scoop: be realistic and be honest. Also be clever, because you can’t change your target later so you better get it right.

2. Come up with a good title for your funding pool pool
Think of your pool title as the first chance to grab your potential contributor’s attention. Now come up with something good. Easier said than done perhaps, but you should be trying to catch your contributor’s attention at all times.

What do you think works better:
“Hey guys, I need money for a trip!”,
Or:
”Help Sarah see the world!”?

Yeah, we know which one you picked. Because we like that one better too.

3. Use a great photo or video
You know that old chestnut about a picture being worth a thousand words? Well, it’s true and in the world of crowdfunding even more so. Your photo or video should clearly communicate what your funding pool is all about. Like for example a video of Sarah spinning a globe or a superimposed image of her standing in front of the great wall of China.  Whatever your fundraising for, the imagery must show the subject of your funding pool.

4. Share. Share. Share.
In order to be heard on the internet these days you have to make a lot of noise. This means that once you’ve set up your funding pool, your crowdfunding campaign has only just began. What comes next is sending a lot of emails, creating a lot of Facebook posts, tweeting like your life depended on it and saying thank you more than ever before. Yes boys and girls, it’s not going to be the picnic at the park, but you will have fun doing it.

This year winter in Berlin feels exactly like this. Snow is being militant about sticking around, caring very little about the fact that it has already overstayed its welcome.  But what can you do, right? Our team at Friendfund Headquarters has taken a very buddhist approach to the never-ending winter of 2013: we sit here in our scarves and wool hats with half-smirks on our faces and are patient. Because no matter how much we huff and puff, the weather is always going to do exactly as it pleases, so why bother?

However, we are the fortunate ones because we have you people to thank for making it easier to ignore winter. With all the good vibes going around Friendfund it makes being moody and annoyed by silly things like the weather that much harder. Just take a look at everything that’s going on on our site. Friends are collecting funds for a buddy who is truly in need due to an unfortunate turn life took. We really are rooting for that pool as it’s coming from such a good place.

Then there’s these people, trying to collect money for a friend so he can come to the festival with them. And these people, who are putting money together for a camera so their two friends will be able to take pictures on their trip. And these people, chipping in for a goodbye present. The list just goes on and on.

it’s true that in life you sometimes don’t have a choice and bad things happen to you, because sometimes bad things happen to everybody. But what you can always do is chose the way you will go about them. So while a car accident, a broken camera, a friend leaving the country or a winter that has no apparent ending in sight are all very valid reasons to be in a foul mood, they can also be opportunities to take a look around and focus on more positive things all around. And when you do that, you will sometimes see people being there for each other and you will feel a bit better about whatever your situation is.

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Which is actually just a van with a plastic brain attached to it and an inbuilt mini science laboratory. In other words: the most amazing thing ever. The something out of a dream vehicle is a crowdfunding project of Tyler Alterman, who will use his creation to bring science to the masses.

When TTT will be ready to hit the road, it will drive to schools where mobile researchers will teach students about the science of the mind, invite citizens aboard to participate in studies and teach them how cognitive science can improve their lives, collaborate with world-renowned psychologists and neuroscientists to deliver sidewalk talks, taking the public on their explorations into human thought and behaviour.

If you’d like to get involved, there’s still some time to do so. Visit Tyler’s page and donate whatever you can. It’s for science.

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