A PARISH council has aired its frustration that some money collected for a community defibrillator was used to pay ‘Crowdfunder charges,’ writes Amy?Dennis.

However, Crowdfunder, which says it is ‘upfront’ about its fees, has agreed to refund the fee of £33.34 ‘as a gesture of goodwill’.

St Stephen by Launceston Rural Parish Council, which already has one defibrillator on the wall of its village hall, wants outlying hamlets to also have access to the potentially life-saving equipment.

It applied to Liberal Democrat Cornwall Councillor Adam Paynter for support from his Community Chest grant to help raise funds and he kindly agreed to donate £300.

However, the parish council was told Community Chest grants would now be through ‘Crowdfunder’ and not as a direct donation, as a community had to raise funds itself before the county councillor would add additional funding.

The parish council had already raised funds through residents donating to the new deibrillator fund at Parish Day, but these donations were subsequently ‘depleted by Crowdfunder charges’.

A statement issued by the parish council clerk, John Conway, read: “Our councillor’s donation of £300 was subjected to a deduction of 6% and the donation from our residents was subjected to a charge of nearly 8%. St Stephen by Launceston Rural Parish had to pay ‘Crowdfunder’ a total of £33.34 in fees and wait nearly three months to receive the funding for their defibrillator. Instead of £500, we now have only £466.66.

“We reached our defibrillator fund target in early January 2018. Our monies were repaid to us at the end of March 2018. Needless to say, our parishioners are not happy that their donations, given freely on Parish Day for defibrillators to help save lives in the parish, have been depleted by charges to a private company with no association to our parish. This cannot be right. Our parishioners are demanding the return of their donations to the sum of £33.34. The community has been penalised.

“St Stephen by Launceston Rural Parish has seen the downside of ‘Crowdfunding’ and has lost money through no fault of its own.

“To add insult to injury, parishioners and parish councillors were obliged to give personal bank, driving licence and passport details before the funds would be released and deposited in their parish council bank account. This did not make any rational sense and was an abuse of the rights of generous people. We have been so offended as a community by this sequence of events, not to mention the loss of our donations and our privacy, that we feel it imperative to warn others of the pitfalls of a service that has had an unfortunate outcome for our parish.

“We shall not be requesting any community funding that requires us to pay charges and give details of personal data in the future. Our parishioners would not condone it. St Stephen by Launceston Rural Parish Council and St Stephens Rural Parish Day Association totally support their sentiments.”

Phil Geraghty, Crowdfunder, MD, said: “From our base in Cornwall, Crowdfunder has worked with thousands of community projects across the UK, successfully raising over £50-million to help make their ideas happen. Our mission is to tackle society’s challenges by making ideas happen.

“We help projects raise both money from the crowd — and extra match funding from partners like Cornwall Council.

“Our campaign, Crowdfund Cornwall, has already supported five local projects including Bude Community Orchard who raised £1,800, Thankes Park in Saltash who raised £1,100 and Beach Guardian project who raised £1,100, including match fund pledges from Cornwall Council’s Grow Nature and Community Chest Funds.

“We are upfront about our fees and project owners are made aware of our fees before they launch. We also are careful to do identity checks before any funds are transferred to project owners.

“We are sorry to hear the Truscott Defibrillator Team were unhappy with their fundraising experience with Crowdfunder — especially as defibrillators are such vital community projects that often need funding support.

“We do acknowledge that crowdfunding may not be suitable for every project and so, as a gesture of goodwill, we are happy to refund the fee of £33.34 to the project owners.

“But we hope that other projects in Cornwall will consider crowdfunding to benefit from some of the £2-million of extra funding we have available on the platform.”

Cornwall Council has also issued a statement to the Post: “Using Crowdfunder online and via social media can help organisations raise and distribute additional funds to support local projects, increase their profile with the public and attract new volunteers/ advocates. The aim is that groups will more than recoup any fees through the additional revenue generated.

“We‘re disappointed to hear that the parish council feels it has not had a positive experience. We are in touch with Crowdfunder and, in this case and as a gesture of goodwill, they have kindly agreed to waive the fees in this case. They are also going to explore how they can work with parish councils more effectively so that grassroots projects can benefit from the support of the wider crowd and additional funding partners.

“Many local community groups, businesses and projects have had a positive experience of Crowdfunding. For example, Bude Friends of the Earth used Crowdfunder for the Bude Community Orchard project.

“They say: ‘We were very pleased with the Cornwall Crowdfunder scheme from start to finish. Support from Cornwall Council and Crowdfunder UK was very welcome and helpful. The briefing session organised by the Council and Crowdfunder gave us all the information we needed in terms of how the scheme would be administered and the fees that would be incurred, we also received support in building an interesting and engaging Crowdfunder project page.

‘We felt that the fees represented very good value given the tools provided to help us publicise our project, which we did largely through Facebook and the local press. We were blown away by the support and enthusiasm from local Bude residents and visitors from all over the world. Now we have a dedicated group of supporters and many of them have taken part in tree planting sessions at the orchard.’

“Crowdfunder does require project owners to provide proof of identity and proof of address as part of anti-money laundering regulations. In light of this case, we are discussing with Crowdfunder whether parish councils’ standing orders can be used in place of identity checks.

“More information for anyone interested in finding out how the Cornwall Crowdfunder scheme can benefit their organisation is available online www.crowdfunder.co.uk/funds/crowdfund-cornwall”