There’s a new way of raising funds for your sporting club, a local athlete or even just for a truly great idea.  Whilst the system it started in the technology industry through websites such as Kickstarter and RocketHub, it has spread to many areas of life and now sport! It is called crowdfunding and it relies on the Internet and social media to raise small amounts of money from a lot of people.  The more people you get aboard obviously the more money you make! The platform you use usually takes a small fee (about 5%) and there are various rules around policies and categories, how much you ask for but it has fast become a simple and easy way to raise funds.

Melissa Barbieri is a name you may know well. She is the former captain of the Westfield Matilda’s and was looking to move to Adelaide to continue her sporting career, as she put it : “it’s not a comeback but a continuation”.  As with many female sports, money is tight with commercial investment through endorsements and sponsorship negligible compared to their male counterparts. Melissa took the unusual stepping of crowd funding her move using a dedicated sport platform called Sportaroo . She put up a few items of memorabilia including items such as shinguards, signed posters, personal training sessions and even personal tweets each with a value attached and watched the offers come in.  Her target was $5000 but in her month long campaign she managed to raise $9 930!

It’s really up to your own imagination as to what you might like to source funding for and importantly you need to spend time promoting your cause to supporters, friends, family, club members etc.  It is certainly not for all, but it might just be for you!  Find out more at Sports Community and Melissa’s video can be found here.