Competition Gathers Pace In Santander Universities Crowdfunding Challenge

The Santander Universities Crowdfunding Challenge is an initiative which allows businesses to market and raise funds for their services. The programme began at the beginning of August with a series of webinars which gave attendees the opportunity to be put through their paces with online training, one-to-one coaching on how crowdfunding can benefit their business, and how to create an engaging, successful crowdfunding project. The webinars covered areas such as:

Planning your campaign

Creating a project page

Running a project

Preparing to launch

Keeping the momentum

Throughout this month, competitors have been campaigning and crowdfunding to gain as much exposure and funds as possible. This all leads up to the national final on the 29th September where the business with the highest engagement on the leaderboard will be announced, winning £6,000 towards their business! All participating businesses will be able to keep any funds raised, along with the validation, advocates and extra funding they’ll have gained along the way.

One of the main projects which stands out is one run by Gillian Seale who helps to Preserve family memories for children who’s parents are battling with terminal illness by creating a literature legacy in the form of beautifully illustrated bespoke books.

As part of her campaign, Gillian is producing story books which help tell the stories of NHS workers who have lost their lives during the current Covid 19 pandemic.

The idea to produce these books came to the author Gillian Seale after UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock made a comment following one of his Cobra Briefings. He stated that they were trying to identify an appropriate way to remember and celebrate these individuals. This really struck a chord with Gillian as this is exactly what her work at Tailored Yarn was all about. She feels that creating a book in honour of NHS Front line Workers' service, is a great way to celebrate their lives and a project that the people of the UK could all contribute to in order to show their appreciation.

“As a story tailor i design watercolour illustrations not clothes and stitch together words and ideas not pieces of material to preserve memories and anecdotes in special fictional legacies. These NHS legacy storybooks will be woven together with colourful threads of unique family history and delicately embroidered with parental wisdom. This gives a child a book which has real elements of a parent's life encouraging naturally arising conversations with other family members about the loved one that has passed away.”

That's according to Gillian Seale, Business Owner at Tailored Yarn Community Investment Company.

These books will preserve memories by capturing the NHS staff names, the depth of their service and compassion, the voices of the people they saved, and their NHS story in order to commemorate their lives, and use their names to inspire the children of the future.

By helping this campaign to succeed, all supporters will be rewarded in the form of hand made support to local crafters with donations going to NHS Charities Together. You can check out all the details on the crowdfunding page.

To help support the campaign and help in the production of these books please visit https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/nhs-memory-storybook?tk=63f2350a48501725ccdc3e79e95520ea10274f83

Every like and share that the campaign gets will help add one pound to the ongoing total. You can of course donate £10, £20, £30, £50 0r any amount. There is also an Earlybird Rainbow Wrist Bands offer.

This is a special limited offer for the first 40 people to pledge £20 Colourful Rainbow Wrist Bands to show your support. So let's show our support for all the brave people working in the NHS to help keep us safe during the pandemic. Please help support this crowdfunding campaign.