Charity, Tech & Funding - Francesca Hodgson, GoodBox

Fundraising expert Julia Elliott Brown, the CEO of Enter The Arena talks with Francesca Hodgson, the Co-founder and Managing Director of GoodBox, which helps non-profit organisations to take cashless donations, by providing them with contactless charity donation boxes, along with software to help them track, analyse and grow the amount of money they raise.Francesca worked as a graphic designer straight after university for World Cancer Research Fund and has always been a creative at heart. After this, she spent nearly 10 years in corporate social responsibility, managing events. Francesca worked with 200+ charities in this setting, and eventually met her business partner. They founded GoodBox after spotting a major gap in the charity sector. They secured an Angel investor at the start, who supported them with the money to create and test the tech which allows charities to take contactless donations.After some success with the initial concept and trial, Francesca and the team needed to raise further money to take the business to the next level. Crowdfunding was the next step through Seedrs. The first crowdfund was in 2018 and was for £2.6m, and the most recent in 2019 for £2.4m.Francesca’s approach to investment was to take networking to the next level. She knew that by reaching out to her network, using LinkedIn and finding others who she might be interested in investing in the business’s mission, she’d find supporters for GoodBox. As well as that, GoodBox were a part of three accelerators that helped the business with invaluable guidance and access to investors.In this episode of Fundraising Stories with Women Entrepreneurs, you’ll discover…Why you should share all of your ideas openly, without being shy or fearing copycatsWhy you shouldn’t let confidence stop you, you’ll always wonder ‘what ifWhy it’s okay to fail