Draft Manuscript for Crowdfunding Manual

[Joe Brewer]

Hello Fellow Collaborators,

We are writing to share the draft manuscript with you for the Crowdfunding Manual for Social Movements.  It is attached below.

The manual is incomplete at this point.  We have written about several substantive issues and now we need your help to shape it into it's final form.

It has taken us longer than we had anticipated because we are struggling with the same challenges that motivate the writing of this manual.  The absence of secure funding for social innovators has left us scrambling to find paid projects throughout the writing period.  This has made it difficult for us to focus on the manual in as sustained a way as we would like.  We are not immune to the problems that we are working to solve!

Hence, we have not completed all of the sections that will be in the final publication version.  The opening page lays out what we've completed so far and what we know remains to be done.

We are sharing this with you now because we believe that collaborative discussions about this material can improve the manuscript and ensure that it is useful for social innovators and entrepreneurs striving to solve the funding challenges that inhibit adoption of sustainable solutions.

You will also note that the new models we suggest in the manuscript are collaborative in nature, so it only makes sense for us to embrace this principle at this stage of the project.  We need to come together -- and work together -- if we are to develop the infrastructure necessary to provide resources for social innovators.

Please read through this manuscript, make notes using the comment function of Microsoft Word, and join us for discussions about how it can be improved in the Google Group set up for this project.

Looking forward to working with you to complete this important project,

Joe Brewer & Suresh Fernando