Catapult, a New Crowdfunding Platform to Advance the Lives of Women and Girls

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A message from our friends at Women Deliver and Catapult, a new crowdfunding platform that supports projects advancing the lives of girls and women around the world:

As the Catalyzing Partners, Women Deliver and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have invested in the development and implementation of this platform in order to drive investments from people to projects that advance the lives of girls and women globally.

For an introduction to Catapult, please watch our 2-minute video at http://www.catapult.org.

The Platform operates through donors browsing different projects by location, topic or need and donating individually or creating donor teams to fund those projects that interest and inspire them. Once a project is fully funded, donors can access detailed information on how their funding has been used to change lives. At the same time, through Catapult’s “Curator” feature, champions for girls and women can promote projects in their specific areas of focus thus fueling a funding powerhouse for girls and women. Catapult never takes a fee from partners – it’s free!

As you probably know, online crowdfunding is transforming how people give. As of 2011, charitable giving through crowdfunding platforms exceeded 676M and grew at an average rate of 43%. Women Deliver’s goal for Catapult is to establish and maintain sustained, long term funding infrastructure capable of scaling many thousands of projects and delivering millions of dollars in funds to benefit girls and women over the next decade.

By listening to women’s funds and organizations, and providing a platform for their projects, Catapult will strengthen the efforts of individuals and organizations working for gender equality. The platform provides an open, direct channel between projects in need of funds and a new generation of citizen donors, leveraging existing networks to fund, sustain and bring work to a global audience.

If you are interested in learning more about Catapult, please contact partners@catapult.org.

Catapult is also looking to engage girls and young women as advocates of crowdfunding for girls and women, and would welcome your nominations of girls and young women whom they believe would be great at communicating this message.

For more information on the Catupult project, click here!