Canada’s first Crowdfunding platform designed to preserve national heritage sites.
The National Trust for Canada was looking to provide a space for heritage organizations across the country to share their projects and attract new audiences to their fundraising efforts. The goal was to ignite an interest in preserving Canada’s national history through a crowdfunding platform that allows Canadians to donate directly to a current heritage project, and vote for which projects they would most like to see funded. This Place Matters was the first crowdfunding platform in Canada dedicated to preserving heritage sites.
This Place Matters allows project owners to create and share a compelling account of their current projects to raise awareness, mobilize their community, and expand their audiences beyond their own backyards. Projects are entered into competitions, where audiences can up-vote their favourites, earning winning causes additional funding.
Designed with customization in mind, each project owner can tailor their story through images, video and written content to help build a custom, multilingual experience for virtual visitors. The voting and donation processes were designed to be clean and user friendly, encouraging donors to explore more projects and participate in heritage conservation on a national scale.
Through crowdfunding competitions and campaigns, This Place Matters has been able to help heritage organizations reach new audiences and expand their fundraising efforts. The platform’s inaugural competition, This Lighthouse Matters, was able to raise $39,666 through crowdfunding donations alone, and received 219,794 votes over the course of 44 days.