New clothes for an old way to fund your neighbourhood project

Last December crowd funding neighbourhood improvement project Spacehive was launched. Spacehive says it aims to provide “a quick and democratic way” to fund a project. It sets out to achieve this by providing an online tool that gives communities collective wherewithal to deliver popular projects independently of councils.

Spacehive aims not solely at the large projects like  community centres and development of parks, but also at the smaller initiatives. Think about a park bench, a goal post and so on.

Spacehive provides an online platform where people can connect, share and donate. Posting a concept can help you connect to others who can support you. It’s free to upload projects and to donate — but administration fees are paid when a project is successfully funded. 

The approach aims to realise great projects that are sitting on the shelf for want of funding. Doing things this way can also bring a sense of ownership to place and projects in public space, because it gets people directly involved with their direct living environments.

While the technology is new, the notion of crowd-funding public spaces is not. Britain has been doing it since Victorian times. Many of our greatest public spaces were funded through public subscription, as were plenty of statues and monuments in our towns and villages. It would seem to be the right time to revive that tradition, empowering communities to transform where they live by voting for projects they like with their wallets.

There's a gap between nice ideas and action – funding. Spacehive cuts to the chase by letting people share the cost of the improvements they want. In return you know that if your project gets funded, you'll actually get what you asked for.

And there appears to be a real demand. People across the country are bursting with great project ideas - whether they're sports club owners keen to build new facilities, talented architects with a vision for reviving an unloved street, or any one of millions who are itching to improve something in their area. But the current merry-go-round of planning meetings, consultations, fundraising rallies and paperwork often means the best ideas choke on bureaucracy before any dirt is shifted.

Suddenly we can get playgrounds built for £50 per family, high streets revitalised for £1,000 per local trader, and wetlands restored for £80 per twitcher.