Difference between revisions of "Team:Dalhousie/Notebook"

Notebook!










Fundraising and Partnerships Timeline/Notebook for Wiki

May 2017:
We started our fundraising efforts by creating a “sponsorship package”. This defined the brand of Dalhousie iGEM, explained our project, and outlined reward tiers for sponsors. For example, if an organization donated $2000 to our team they would receive prominent feature on our website and t- shirts, a resume booklet of our team members, and features on our social media pages. We also compiled a contact list of potential sponsors. This list included local biotech companies, large corporations known for sponsoring student groups, and members of the university community.

June 2017:
On June 7 th we held our first fundraising workshop. Teammates got together to learn how to construct a request email, the art of the follow up phone call, and how to promote iGEM consistently. Throughout June, teammates began to request monetary and In Kind Donations. Throughout July we received in kind donations of supplies from BioRad, Qiagen, and NEB. We also received a $100 monetary donation from our local counselor Waye Mason. We also began meeting with potential partners Genome Atlantic and Biovectra.

July 2017:
Throughout the summer we began applying for grants. We were awarded a Springboard Grant of $13,000 through a partnership with BioNova. Additionally, we received a generous donation of $20,000 from the Dalhousie Medical Research Foundation. Our partners Genome Atlantic and Biovectra became silver sponsors of Dalhousie iGEM and we developed a working relationship with the two.

August 2017:
In August we began to consider the prospect of Crowdfunding. We decided to launch a campaign through Project Dal, a crowdfunding platform for Dalhousie University. We filmed a promotional video, and met with the University Fundraising team to learn the ins and outs of crowdfunding. We then created a communication package describing how to promote iGEM to groups of people.

September 2017:
We launched our crowdfunding campaign on September 8 th with a goal of $10,000. Press releases were sent to all local media with an article appearing in local newspaper The Chronicle Herald. We began sharing our campaign with local businesses and members of the Dalhousie Community. We met with the Dean of Science, the Assistant Dean of Medicine, and the Faculty of Management. We received $5000 from the Faculty of Medicine and $2000 from the Dean of Science. So far, we have received $660 in funding from friends and family of our teammates. The project Dal campaign will continue until mid October and we are currently just $2,460 short of our goal.