GreenFunder: Foré Bamboo

What is GreenFunder?

GreenFunder is a global fundraising site for socially responsible projects and businesses. To GreenFunder, green is 'anything with good intentions'. Projects range from simple student field trips to complex green business start-ups. The site is designed to help anyone - entrepreneurs, nonprofits, teachers, kids - get the funding they need.

Individuals and organizations can test, market, fund, and sell their projects, products, or events - all risk-free, and retain 100% ownership. Projects are featured as campaigns, each with a funding goal and a deadline. Each campaign offers rewards to their funders - products, experiences, and/or recognition - at different funding levels.

Every person has ideas to help make the world a better place. We are excited to offer a tool that allows people to see these ideas through to fruition.

How does GreenFunder work?

Share your project.
Launch a campaign with the wow to turn viewers to funders. Don't worry, we'll help you out!

Spread the word.
Boost your campaign with our cool social networking tools. Your fans will love them too!

Reward your supporters.
Offer unique products and experiences to your supporters for their funding. How can they resist?

Reach your goal.
You keep 100% ownership of your project. Score!

Why GreenFunder?

Traditional ways to raise money are full of risk and uncertainty. If you're lucky, you get loans, debt, grants or investors
- all before knowing if your concept will be popular or sell.

The GreenFunder way is risk-free. Have sales and users before starting your project or spending money.

No red tape, compromise or debt. You own it 100%. Instead of paying back loans, you offer
products and experiences to your funders.

No project too small. To us, 'Green' is any project with good intentions.
A project that helps the community or environment. If it does both, it's even better.

Your success is critical to our success. We're going to work extra hard to help you reach your project goal.
Greenfunder gets 5% of funding of fully-funded projects - and the satisfaction of being able to help!

+ Submit Your Project

Campaign Tips

Tips for a Successful Campaign

These tips will help the success of your project while it is on GreenFunder and afterwards.

Enchant us. Guy Kawasaki, Apple's marketing champ, calls the response to an amazing product "enchantment". How is your project unique and special? Why should we love it? Tell your story. Show us. Get personal. How does your project benefit us and the world? Help us all experience your enthusiasm and vision.

Give us great rewards. Show how we can personally benefit and change the world at the same time. Give us something to tell our friends about. Add a photo and give us a shopping experience.

Get face to face. Start with friends and family, then reach out to alumni groups, local and online clubs, professional associations, your church. Speak to groups. Show a power point. Listen to what people say about your project. Learn. Improve your message. Don't expect us to ante up the first time. It has to sink in. Give it to us in as many forms as possible and then remind us.

Gather a great team. Two voices are better then one. How about an organization who believes in your cause? Tell them about our project and educate them on the sharing tools for your campaign. Having more people involved means more advocates, more credibility, and more exposure to potential funders. You can still have a successful campaign going at it alone, but it's great to have some help.

Get in the news. Weekly and daily newspapers, community calendars, blogs and e-zines, association websites and newsletters, and more. You have a great story. Build personal relationships with writers. Put out well-written press releases with lots of attached visuals and, as your story develops, put out more press releases.

Make us your advocates. Keep your funders up-to-date and excited. Show us how we've been right to support you. Tell us about your successes - new funding, new partners, new ideas - so that we have something new and exciting to tell our friends. And maybe we'll fund more.

Make it easy for us to spread the word. Tell a great story, offer great rewards, get published and grow support. Tell us what's happening so we can tell our friends. Keep it brief, clear, simple, and when possible, visual. Use networking tools - Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, SlideShare, and more - so we don't have to work at it.

+ Submit Your Project

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Learn More

Foré Bamboo

By Chris Dennis - Ithaca, NY, United States

We partner with Haitian community organizations to plant and maintain non-invasive construction grade bamboo. This bamboo can then be used to relieve the housing and environmental crises in Haiti.

About Developing Bamboo
On our first trip to Haiti, two huge problems were very striking: the urgent need for housing, and the barren, deforested hillsides. In an effort to contribute to Haiti’s long-term sustainable development, this bamboo project is our foray into tackling both of these massive problems head on. So far, we have planted over 15,000 ft² of bamboo nursery with four Haitian community partner organizations, and we are planning to ambitiously expand in the coming year.
Our goal is to develop bamboo as a multi-purpose crop to build disaster-resistant houses, slow down deforestation and erosion, and develop the local economy. Our strategy is to partner with local Haitian organizations which can provide land and social capital, and help them with the technicalities of growing bamboo and buildings safe houses. All of the profits – both economic and environmental – will go directly to the Haitians in the community.
Why Bamboo?
1. Bamboo is a phenomenal construction material
Over 1.5 million Haitians in desperate need of shelter. Bamboo is a cheap, sustainable, and locally-sourced building material that can be used to build earthquake and hurricane resistant houses.

2. Bamboo will help the economy
Because bamboo is incredibly versatile, it can increase farmers incomes, and create jobs in construction, agriculture, energy, etc. This economic incentive is incredibly important to ensure that the project is sustainable in the long term.

3. Bamboo is extremely beneficial to the environment
Erosion, deforestation, and mass extinction are all enormous problems in Haiti. Bamboo reduces soil erosion, provides a multitude of environmental services, and takes the stress off of natural forests, protecting the threatened species within. It is one of the best plants for carbon sequestration, which is extremely important as the impacts of climate change become more catastrophic.
Foundation Seguin, one of our local partners, is committed to protecting one of Haiti's last remaining – and highly threatened – forests: La Visite National Park. Bamboo is already being planted near the shrinking forest to provide an energy alternative to firewood, which is by far the biggest cause of deforestation in the park. We are working to expand Seguin's existing bamboo nurseries, and establish native tree nurseries to help preserve Hispaniola's most critically threatened and biologically diverse habitat.
Contribute to Developing Bamboo
Your contribution will help build an innovative organization that will be on the ground in Haiti tackling these issues with green solutions. Every cent goes towards a bamboo shoot that will help grow a better future. Money raised will go towards project expenses like buying bamboo planting material, fencing, labor, and transporting the bamboo. In addition, we are more than happy to create custom orders to suit your needs. Prices do not include shipping. For more information, check out http://www.developingbamboo.org/