In the latest edition of our crowdfunding column, we are spotlighting women-led campaigns that are raising money for the bare necessities — space to stretch and play, access to human touch, and places to buy dancing shoes and learn to cook healthful food.
Check out these 5 women-led crowdfunding campaigns:
1. A Space for an Expanding Yoga Business (via Indiegogo)
The Business: Amanda Quintanilla has her sights set on a new home for her yoga business. She’s the owner of Just Be Well Yoga, a Fort Worth, Texas-based venture that has, until now, been run from a shared space. Quintanilla is designing her own exclusive studio where she plans to offer both traditional classes and more modern practices, like aerial yoga. “I feel so lucky to have reached the point where this dream is manifesting into reality,” Quintanilla says. She just needs a financial boost to make it come true.
The Money: Quintanilla has 15 days remaining in her campaign, and hopes to raise $25,000 before it concludes. The money will be used to turn her new space into a yoga studio by adding new flooring, increasing the natural light, adding rigging for aerial yoga, and more.
2. Healthy Human Contact for People with Disabilities (via iFundWomen)
The Business: Cuddlist is a business that offers healthy touch by trained practitioners to people with disabilities. Launched in 2016 by co-founder Madelon Guinazzo, the Montclair, N.J., venture teaches caregivers how to offer safe, consensual touch to their patients. “Through Cuddlist, those who are touch-deprived are able to feel like a whole person, and, for some, it’s the first time in their lives they’ve achieved that state of being, without just being seen for the disability or illness,” she says in her campaign. Now, she wants to offer services to a larger group of people.
The Money: Through this campaign, Guinazzo wants to expand by training more practitioners to work with clients with disabilities. Within the next 24 days, she aims to raise $25,000.
3. A New Store for a Dance Community in Need (via Indiegogo)
The Business: Rose Kirshner has been dancing her entire life. As an adult, she turned that passion into a profession by working at San Francisco Dancewear, where she helped fellow dancers find the shoes and attire they needed — until it went out of business. The closure left “the central Bay Area without a major dancewear and pointe shoe fitting location,” Kirshner says. But she and her fellow former employees want to lease a new location and open SF Dance Gear, where area dancers can once again find their dancing shoes.
The Money: Kirshner is crowdfunding to stock her new store with ballet slippers, leotards and other gear. She has 18 days remaining to meet her goal amount of $50,000.
4. An All-in-One Play Table for Kids — and Moms (via KickStarter)
The Business: Italian designer and entrepreneur Martina Cusano, co-founder of toy and beauty product company Mukako, is selling a versatile, sustainable playtime solution to moms the world over. Her MUtable and accompanying chairs can adapt to become a play place with puzzles, a blackboard, a Lego building base and more. It also has attachments to make clean-up easier and is made from durable wood. Cusano ran one crowdfunding campaign to bring the idea to life — now she’s running a second to expand it.
The Money: Cusano’s campaign, which will fund the production of new games and accessories for her tables, has 50 days to go. Her goal is to raise at least $61,560 in American dollars.
5. A Growing Catering Service Teaching Low-Income Children (via iFundWomen)
The Business: Bent Events co-founder Lana Browner got into business to address what she refers to as a dearth of clean comfort food. She also sought to address the “lack of resources teaching low income children how to cook healthy meals for themselves and siblings that they care for while parents are away from the home,” according to her campaign. Through her venture, she provides healthier options at both catered events and farmers markets, and offers classes to kids on how to cook in healthier ways.
The Money: There are 31 days left on Browner’s campaign, through which she hopes to raise $15,000 — funding she would use to move Bent Events to a larger location, hire more chefs and update her kitchen equipment.
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Want to be featured in The Story Exchange’s Crowdfunding column? Drop us a line and tell us about your campaign at [email protected].
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