Tuesday 30-06-2015 - 13:53

We’re absolutely thrilled to announce that Roehampton Students’ Union have crowdfunded £20,000 to support their sustainability and social enterprise work!

As the initial financial support of Students’ Green Fund comes to an end, our twenty five projects are working to secure legacy funding to ensure their projects can continue to expand and thrive.

Growhampton – Roehampton Students’ Union’s food growing, café and social enterprise – has been a huge success, and they decided to try a crowdfunding approach to secure the future of their project, offering incentives from T-shirts to private dinner parties and cookery masterclasses to drive support.

It was incredibly successful, and the £20,000 raised is testament to how much the café and project is adored by students, staff and members of the local community.

The comments left by some of the pledgers pay tribute to the transformational nature of Growhampton. One called it “a unique project which impacts on so many people’s lives” while another said that it’s “an amazing asset to the community”.

The project staff, understandably, are thrilled by the success of the crowdfunding effort.“We have been overwhelmed by the number of people pledging”, says Growhampton development officer Teresa.

“Loads of people have got behind the campaign, from a mum who grabs a coffee from The Hive each morning to students who come to the café for lunch to staff who visit the market day”

The Hive Café is the social enterprise aspect of their project – and this money will be used to expand the space, allowing them to serve more customers and secure a sustainable financial future for all of the project’s activities, from running their market day, having chickens on campus, and provide volunteering opportunities.

The success of this crowdfunding could act as an example for other students’ unions trying to get projects off the ground which are really popular, but might lack resource or funding. It goes to show what you can achieve when you’re so dedicated to making a positive impact.

“Growhampton is for the campus population and local people”, Teresa told us, “and their amazing support proves to us that sustainable ethical local food is something that people really care about”.