Introduction to Crowd funding

What is Crowd funding? Crowd funding has been defined as the method of financing a project or venture by raising small amounts of money from a large number of people usually through the internet. A lot of pilot projects and ideas have been funded entirely by people who believe in the project and pulled resources together to finance it. Crowd funding has been hailed by many because of its ability to raise funds efficiently without much financial stress from the participants.

Usually, there are 3 parties to a crowd funding program and they are as follows:

1. Project Initiator: This is an individual who belongs to a crowd funding community. He thinks up an idea or project and forwards his proposal to the community for funding. The type of projects to be funded may be defined or undefined by the community. Each member has the opportunity to invent a project or idea. These ideas can be funded by the crowd if it receives community approval.
2. The Crowd: A group of people who are members of a crowd funding community. The crowd or community approves the ideas proposed by the project initiator. The crowd then pulls their resources or small contributions together and finances the project and hopes to make it a success for the project initiator and community at large.
3. The Platform: This is an organization that moderates the activities of the crowd. The Platform mediates between the project initiator and the community. It brings the parties together through evaluating proposed ideas and seeking ways to finance them by means of the crowd.

What is Steem Community Crowd Funding?

Assuming we understood crowd funding as briefly explained above, then it is safe to say that every crowd funding program requires a platform. This is what SCCF represents.
SCCF stands for Steem Community Crowd Funding. From the name, it is a platform for Steemit members to pull their resources together or make small contributions to finance the personal ideas, community projects or simply to make savings. SCCF hopes to assist members execute their projects and succeed with the help of the community.

Let us explain how SSCF plans to operate.

How SCCF hopes to operate

1. Participation: SCCF is open to everyone. Both old and new Steemians can join the program and benefit from the contributions.
2. Groups: To begin, participating members are arranged in groups. Each group is made up of 8 participants or less. The group is organized based how much each participant has volunteered to contribute. For example, participants who decided to contribute 1SBD each are arranged in the same group. The group is small because we want the last member to receive his contributed fund without having to wait too long.
3. Group leader: This is automatically the first person who applied to join a group for the contributions and is approved (meets the qualifying condition).
4. Group code: Each group is assigned a code for proper identification. For example, the code would look like this for a group whose members contribute 1SBD each. “SCCFG1”.
5. Beneficiary: The SCCF member who receives the contributed funds for that week is called the beneficiary.
6. Contributions: Each member applies to join a group and make contributions by indicating how much they wish to contribute. The contributions are made in Steem Based Dollar (SBD).
7. Duration for the entire round of contributions: Each contribution made within a week is given to the beneficiary for that week. Working with 8 members for each group, the contributions would take 8 weeks to complete. After which the group is dissolved.

How much to contribute:

To begin, we have 15 categories of contributions as follows:

I. 0.1 SBD
II. 0.3 SBD
III. 0.5 SBD
IV. 0.7 SBD
V. 1.9 SBD
VI. 1.1 SBD
VII. 1.3 SBD
VIII.1.5 SBD
IX. 1.7 SBD
X. 1.9 SBD
XI. 2.1 SBD
XII. 2.3 SBD
XIII.2.5 SBD
XIV. 2.7 SBD
XV. 3.1 SBD

How to make a contribution:

i. Make sure you belong to a group by indicating through comment made on the post announcing the groups.
ii. Send your contribution to SCCF between Tuesday and Friday. Of each week.
iii. Indicate your group code and amount contributed in the memo.

The nature of Projects:

Crowd funding is a program used to finance projects. This is true. However, under SCCF, we do not want to limit your freedom in deciding what to do with the contributed funds you received. Each participant is allowed to define his or her projects and ideas. Mr. John may decide to solve an immediate family problem with his funds. Ms. Hellen might decide to start a business project with hers. Other people may decide to do charity work. Everyone is given the opportunity to make up their mind and use the funds effectively. Apart from executing projects, we want to encourage making savings with the funds for a rainy day – who knows.
So SCCF seeks to enlarge the scope of a normal crowd funding program since it includes the features of multipurpose cooperative societies. In 3 ways sccf is unique and allows some freedom:

1. Everyone makes contributions and receives contributed funds in turns.
2. The project initiator defines his project.
3. The project initator does not require the approval of the crowd

How to join

I. Follow the community @sccf,
II. Write a short post of application using our tag @sccf. In your post, explain the following: (1) how you heard about @sccf. (2) Why you want to join and what you hope to bring to the community.
III. You will be invited to join our discord channel if your application is approved.

Method of operation:

i. How the slots or positions are arranged:
Group members pick their slot or position based on when they applied to make contributions. The first person to apply to contribute that amount picks the first position or slot. The second applicant takes the second slot until the last slot. Each group is closed once the 8th person arrives. They begin their contribution afterwards. Once the last person in the group receives his contribution, the group is automatically dissolved. Members can apply again and form another group and resume another round of contributions.
ii. When are the slots announced and when does the contribution start?
SCCF is planned to be a weekly contribution project. Each group makes their contribution between Tuesday and Friday of each week. The contributed funds are sent to SCCF with a memo indicating the group code and the amount being contributed. The contributed fund is then transferred to the beneficiary for that week from the SCCF account between Saturday and Sunday. The following Monday, SCCF announces new groups for new members and contributions resume on Tuesdays both for new and old groups.

Rules and other requirements

1. Each participant must ensure they are capable of completing their contributions.
2. A participant is allowed to join a maximum of 1 group at a time.
3. Group members are not allowed to use foul language or derogatory or harsh remarks among members. Those who default would lose their membership after first warning.
4. All the participants must upvote the post by @sccf announcing the groups and confirming the created and approved groups.
5. Each beneficiary in a group is entitled to 7 votes from the 7 group members on a preferred post during the week. The weight of the vote should not be less than 50%.
6. Each beneficiary for the week is entitled to 1 vote on any post of choice within the week from SCCF.
7. Group members must resteem any post of choice of the beneficiary for the week (Post must be at least 300 words long with at least one image).
8. Participants are expected to introduce this opportunity to others and will be rewarded with 1 extra vote from the community account if they introduce 10 persons within a week. The new participants must indicate how they learnt about SCCF in their introduction post.
9. SCCF is still work in progress and reserves the right to amend or add new rules if that become necessary.

Some Benefits of joining SCCF

1. Savings: SCCF wants to develop the saving culture. Our work so hard to accumulate our SBD. Would it not be nice if we could take out a significant portion of our earnings and save them for a rainy day? To SCCF, it makes sense. You may decide to save in Steem, SBD or withdraw your funds and save in any other currency of choice. Through this program we will achieve that by community effort.
2. Financing Projects: Even though the project here is not spelt out, we hope and strongly believe that beneficiaries of this program would make good use of the accumulated funds given to them. How to use them is left to you, but we trust your judgment.
3. Earnings through votes: Members are entitled to votes from the group they belong and from the community account. We hope that as these votes come with considerable weight, it would help your overall earnings to rise.
4. Build relationships: When we get to know group members as a small unit and all of us in this community, we have the opportunity to interact with people from all works of life. We also get to know people’s interest and their areas of endeavor. It is believed that such mutual interaction and understanding would enable us to achieve great things and go far in life.
5. Support Growth: We love to see the progress of everyone who believes in community effort. Especially the minnows, from time to time, we will brainstorm and engage ideas and programs that will empower all of us to achieve our dreams and overcome our challenges individually and as a group.
6. Help out with charitable works: You have the opportunity to feel the happiness that comes from giving your time and resources for the benefits of others.

When are we starting the contributions?

We expect this project to fully start in 3 months time – precisely September 24, 2018. For now, we want to work hard on building steem power and creating the community for sccf. We are also working on sorting other issues yet to be resolved. We welcome steempower delegations and general contributions to see that we build enough thrust to fully kick off.

What will sccf be doing between now and September 24?

We will be creating awareness for sccf by making posts, running contests and doing other activities to bring the attention of steemit community to this project. We also want to do lots of giveaways

The big question - How do we monitor and enforce compliance

This is an area we are still undecided yet as we are comtemplating some suggestions and options on hand. So we welcome your own suggestions here on how to make sure people do not walk in, take contributed funds and simply discontinue making their weekly contributions. This is a crucial area and one of the reasons we are putting this proposal out so you can help us with ideas on how to make this work the best way.

Who is behind this project

Five friends working hard to start up this idea.

The founder
Charles @focusnow

Start up Facilitators

1. Nelson @whitestallion
2. Joseph @joseph60
3. Nwachukwu @nwasam
4. Joe @truelifegist
5. Jubilant @jubilant
6. Henry @ngozichuks2
7. Zack @zack118

Please Remember!

sccf is still at the planning stage. We are willing and happy to consider your valuable suggestions and contributions by comments. Thanks.