Milena Popova
Programme & Business Development Manager , Europeana Foundation
Strike a match for education: help us find projects that reuse cultural heritage for learning
Do you know of any fascinating projects that reuse Europeana’s openly licensed content for educational purposes? In cooperation with crowdfunding platform Goteo, Europeana will launch a match funding call in February 2017. Within this match funding campaign we will allocate 10,000 EUR to co-fund up to three innovative projects that reuse our content for secondary education purposes. We invite cultural heritage institutions to reach out to their creative communities and encourage them to take advantage of this unique funding opportunity.
Europeana’s match funding campaign will run for five months and follow a number of steps. First, creatives will be able to submit their proposals between early February and mid March. We will then carry on with proposal evaluation and announce the selected projects by the end of March. Throughout April, the winners will work together with Goteo representatives and learn how to design a successful crowdfunding campaign. The three crowdfunding campaigns will go live by the end of April and run until June.
The eligible project proposals should meet certain criteria, such as innovation, engagement, feasibility, use of Europeana openly licensed material, and relevance for secondary education. They can vary from apps, MOOCs, e-books, to documentaries or other creative educational tools. Soon, Europeana will release more detailed information about this match funding call.
Why match funding?
Europeana has been collaborating with Platoniq’s crowdfunding platform Goteo.org to promote alternative funding strategies for creative projects using digital cultural content. Recently, we introduced match-funding, a method which encourages co-investment between public and private institutions and the crowd. The crowd is invited to invest in a project through small fund donations and the institution matches these contributions.
Match funding has proved to be a powerful tool for increasing the impact of crowdfunding. Usually, the success rate (reaching the minimum set budget) of crowdfunding campaigns on Goteo is 71%. This rate rises to 90% when match funding is introduced.
The VanGoYourself (VGY) online service, developed within the Europeana Creative project, is an inspiring example of a match funding campaign with cultural heritage content. In 2015, The VGY team ran a successful match funding campaign; it exceeded the 5,000 EUR set budget. This campaign was supported by the International University of Andalusia (UNIA).
Together we can support creative communities. Spread the word about our match funding call, and help us find the best digital cultural heritage projects that require funding! If you're interested in joining this call, we would like to know who you are. Contact us to learn more and become involved!