Local business
How do you fund a local shop, café or bakery with crowdfunding?
Ask your neighbours to fund one visible thing, like the oven or the new counter, and repay them in coffee, bread and their name on the wall.
Short answer
Ask the people who will walk through your door to fund one thing they can see: the oven, the coffee machine, the new counter, the terrace. Repay them in what you sell, such as a coffee card or a loaf a week, plus their name on the wall. Set a goal that covers that one thing with its installation and the rewards you owe, and launch while the shop is visible from the street. If the goal is missed, every backer takes their pledge back.
Key facts
- Reward crowdfunding only: backers get coffee, bread or thanks, never a share of the shop or a return.
- Add your location, so neighbours recognise the campaign as theirs.
- No company, no bank account and no ID needed by CoFunders to start.
- All or nothing: pledges wait in escrow until the deadline.
- Each pledge pays 1.5% plus a flat $0.99.
What part of a shop should you crowdfund?
One visible piece, not the whole opening. "Help us open" is vague; "fund the stone oven that bakes your bread" gives neighbours something to picture and something to check on when they walk past.
Good fits: the oven, the espresso machine and grinder, the counter and display fridges, the terrace furniture, the sign, the first month of stock for a new shop. Rent and wages are harder to rally people around, so cover them another way.
How big should the goal be?
What your regulars and neighbours can fill without strangers, and enough to make the one thing work on opening day. Count the people who already know the shop, or the street, and assume a share of them back you. Then price every line:
- The equipment itself, new or second hand, with delivery.
- Installation: the electrics, gas, water, drainage or extraction it needs.
- Works around it: the counter, the floor, the wall it goes against.
- Licences and permits: check with your municipality what the works, the sign and the business need, and the food hygiene rules if you serve food.
- The cost of the rewards: every coffee card is coffee you serve for nothing later.
- Fees, taken from each pledge.
For example, a bakery wants a new deck oven: the oven $6,000, installation and electrics $1,500, the bread and coffee you owe as rewards about $1,000, and a buffer of $500. That is $9,000 before fees. At an average pledge of $50, about 190 backers. If that is more than your street can carry, fund the oven alone and pay for the works from savings. The goal planner adds the fees.
What rewards work for a shop or café?
What you already make, and a place in the shop's story:
- A coffee card: ten coffees for the price of the pledge.
- A loaf a week for a month, picked up at the counter.
- Your name on the backers' wall, painted or on a plaque.
- An invite to the opening night, before the doors open to everyone.
- A workshop: a baking class, a tasting, a latte art morning.
- A mug or a tote bag with the shop's name.
- A pastry or a drink named after you for a month.
- The shop for a private evening, for the biggest backers.
Spread the cost of vouchers over months, and give them an end date. The reward tier planner shows what each level costs you to honour.
When should you launch, and who will back it?
When the shop is there to see: the keys in hand, the windows covered, the works about to start. People back what they pass every day.
Put a poster with the link in the window, tell every customer at the till, and post in the neighbourhood's groups. Ask the businesses next door to share it too. A share reward of up to 18.5% of each pledge pays whoever brings a backer in.
How do you keep your promises if the opening slips?
Never print an opening date on a reward. Works and licences can run late, and a late reward is what backers remember.
- Make vouchers valid from opening day, for months after it, not from a fixed date.
- Order the equipment only once you claim the funds, and get the delivery time in writing.
- Post an update when the works start, when the oven arrives, when the licence comes in.
- If the opening moves, tell backers first, before the street notices.
What does CoFunders cost a shop?
Writing and previewing the campaign is free. Opening it costs $5 on the free plan. Each pledge pays 1.5% plus a flat $0.99, and the smallest pledge is $10. Backers pay by card or in USDC.
The percentage fee on a pledge follows the plan of the account making it. It's taken when the pledge is made, so it isn't returned if the campaign misses its goal. Paid plans aren't on sale today, so the published fee is the free plan's fee.
Check the VAT and tax on what you raise: running a campaign lists what to look at.
What if the neighbourhood doesn't reach the goal?
If the goal isn't met by the deadline, you take your pledge back from escrow with one tap, and nobody has to approve it. What comes back is the amount held for you: your pledge minus the fees taken when you backed (the platform fee, the flat fee, any tip and any share reward the campaign pays).
Your regulars keep their money and their trust in you, and you know the street wanted something smaller.
How do you start?
- Pick the one thing to fund and get a quote with installation.
- Sign up in the app with email or Google.
- Write the story with a photo of the shop, then the goal, the deadline and the rewards.
- Add the location, preview it and publish.
- Put the link in the window and at the till on day one.
How to raise money for your idea, from the free course, covers the basics. If paperwork is what stopped you before, read raise money without the paperwork. Everything you can fund has a guide for each kind of project, and every other question is in the answers.