You can read about our work on our website and blog where we have plenty of case studies and testimonials, so we'll get straight to the point... we need a bit of investment so we can make our relaunch really special.

Usually, projects seek crowd funding at the start of their endeavours. Help with proving a concept or trying to make connections with those who can help expand the business. We come with a different problem: those with money and power see our new franchise business model is viable, sustainable and needed. They want it, have tried (and failed) to take it, and are now willing to buy it. If we accept their money then all of the members of The Eye of the Storm and the future of the community will be placed at their mercy. We will be required to introduce monitoring systems that would undermine everything about the empowerment we are on the cusp of creating. 

Over the past three years, Team TEotS has invested personally, worked multiple jobs and sold a lot of personal items to ensure the community is always owned and run by itself. Having come so far, we can't lose that security. 

These are the things we need support with:

- 11-14 Sep - Full re-launch in the ELISE Centre (£7,900) - this will cover transport, additional top-up printing, local marketing, professional costs and speaker expenses. Basic snacks and refreshments will also be covered as we will be asking our foody members to come along and demonstrate their wares too! It will also cover the cost of designing and testing the full franchise package, which the ELISE Centre will be the first to implement. Our website is also undergoing some structural changes to help us cope with sign up demand and we would like to have the first stage of this complete by the relaunch too.

- Post Re-launch - (£5,350) - this covers basic transport for setting up in the other Hackney centre, the Bristol centre and the centre in Easton, local marketing and professional obligatory costs (accounting, legal). It also partially covers the cost of signage and printing and some basic snacks and refreshments for each of the new franchise centres' launch days- however, most of those costs will be raised by the new franchises themselves.

We then have HMRC tax costs and fees from Fundsurfer, which amount to £3,313. Bringing the total to £16,563.

To note, if we don't manage to raise the money mentioned above then we'll just keep plugging away at it by getting second and third jobs, which will obviously take much longer. While on the other hand, if we did raise £50,000 then we would be able to support the full team (ten people) and allow them to commit fully to our September re-launch and post strategy mission. The more financial support we receive the faster we will be able to roll this out across the UK with true integrity. We have the opportunity present to centres 13 of the major cities in the UK, which is an opportunity that we don't want to miss. For that, we would like our new members' website platform to be fully up and running so we can demonstrate the potential impact of The Eye of the Storm in the UK and allow our global members are able to start signing up people, projects and centres in their part of the world.

Creating a sustainable business model

By way of reassurance, post re-launch, our franchise business model will kick in and generate the revenue we need to grow and sustain the business. So this is the only time we'll be asking for your support for central running costs. All profits we make will be reinvested in The Eye of the Storm to help enhance the network. We will also be using it to create a new kind of grant funding organisation called the Karma Trust but we'll tell you more about that later!  And 

In future, we will be using this platform to help local centres raise the start-up money they need to help them get going.  And will also be encouraging our project members from across the world to showcase their projects on this space too.

Thanks for taking an interest – we do hope you’d like to get involved.

~ Team TEotS