Led by powerful statistics, a team in Plymouth set out to reach 2,020 young girls in an effort to improve mental health and wellbeing in the South West. In collaboration with Plymouth’s iMayflower project to support creative digital ideas, Big Sis CIC went online to combat the effects of lockdown.
Research has found that girls are three times more likely to suffer from depression than boys. Understanding that many of the problems impacting teenage girls have their roots in the transition from childhood, Big Sis CIC — a newly founded social enterprise in Devon — began a mental health mentoring program.
Through the program, the team trained female students studying education to provide mentoring and support to young girls. They soon witnessed first-hand the positive impact emotional literacy and menstrual education had on self-confidence, emotional awareness, body knowledge, and body image. This inspired Big Sis to expand their program and reach 2,020 young girls in Plymouth & South Hams.
After winning the Crowdfunder supported Plymouth Startup Weekend in November 2019, they set up a crowdfunding campaign with an aim to raise £15,000. This funding would allow them to run their 2020 Plymouth Pilot Project, train 300 student volunteers to deliver sessions in primary and secondary schools, and create local opportunities for young women studying education.
Online-mentoring scheme during and beyond lockdown
In response to the first lockdown of the pandemic, Big Sis CIC created an online mentoring scheme to reflect the challenges faced by parents and girls to attend sessions. By offering Zoom spaces, Big Sis CIC were able to keep in regular contact with families and even expand their reach further to a wider audience than previously anticipated.
In addition to Zoom spaces, they also now offer a series of webinars for the parents and guardians of 8-12 year olds and wellbeing workshops for the girls themselves.
Big Sis Founder, Friedel Fink, told us, “Being a new organisation, we felt that by crowdfunding we would have better chances to fund our project than going for 'more formal' ways of funding.
As a community based organisation, we had a lot of demand to do our work around body and emotional literacy, so we had a lot of support from our community already.”
With the impacts of the coronavirus crisis being felt all over the UK, Friedel knew that the Big Sis Mentoring Program would be vital in helping young girls through their increased stress and anxiety.
She said, “The long duration of the campaign running throughout the lockdown gave us the opportunity to identify the needs of our community and come up with new ways of working (online offerings) to reach people, despite not being able to do in person events. It taught us that there's always something we can do and to keep a fresh mind.”
A helping hand from the iMayflower programme and other partners
The campaign went on to raise £18,948 from 110 supporters, including pledges from four of Crowdfunder’s funding partners: £500 from the iMayflower initiative, £5,000 came from the BackHer Business programme, £7,500 from Plymouth City Council and £2,500 from the Crowdfund Sovereign Pay It Forward Fund.
The impact of crowdfunding
Along with securing vital funding, crowdfunding allowed Big Sis CIC to develop connections with individuals, parents, potential volunteers, and community organisations.
“Crowdfunding has helped us to make our Mentoring Program possible, create jobs, and reach more people in the community. It has built our community of supporters and raised awareness of the importance of our work, which is always a step forward.”
Before she left, Friedel left us with her top tips for others out there thinking about using the power of the crowd to raise funds and build their community.
- “Get a passionate, well sized team together to support each other –don’t do it alone or burn yourself out!
- Bring your message out to the right people that sympathise with your mission instead of lots and lots of random people.
- Be determined! We have successfully funded our project in times of a global pandemic. Many times we wanted to give up, believing that it was impossible to raise funds at this time. Our example proves different.”
We’re helping creative digital ideas become a reality in Plymouth and the surrounding area. Start crowdfunding today and gain exclusive one-to-one coaching with Crowdfunder’s experts and apply to receive a pledge of £250 from iMayflower.