Fundraising

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We want to send a great big thank you to everyone who has supported the Brighton5 Crowdfunder to raise vital funds for Brighton5’s next project, which is to work with teens and local schools and colleges to tackle mental health issues. We’d also like to pick your brains!

Launching a Crowdfunder has been a huge learning curve! It sometimes feels like we’re looking after a newborn baby – one that needs feeding every couple of hours! Our team is all hands on deck updating, posting to social media and contacting everyone we know, and everyone they know! We’ve even had a tweet from Alan Carr!

Our biggest challenge is to get the word out to as many people in Brighton & Hove as possible. And whilst our priority is to raise the funds for the project, we also want to spread the word about what we’re doing and why it’s so important. So here’s our question: how can we get our message out to an even wider group of people? We want to reach parents who feel that they need help as well as teachers and teens. If just 10% of people in Brighton & Hove donate £1, we’ll have reached our target! Please get in touch or leave a comment and help us to get this project funded. Thank you!

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Brighton5 crowdfunder

Hello friends! We’ve just launched our Brighton5 crowdfunder which has it’s official launch on Wednesday 10th October on World Mental Health Day.

We want to get as many people involved in our Crowdfunder as possible and with that in mind, we’re campaigning for people to donate anything from £1 (hopefully more!) to the fund, and to pass it on – to recommend every friend and colleague donate too – to give #1forBrighton5! With 300,000 people in Brighton & Hove, we could reach our target if just 10% of residents donate £1! That would be an amazing feat, and also spread the word about our amazing project and our amazing teens.

So now it’s over to you. Please donate, share the link and tell everyone about Brighton5 – on Facebook, on Twitter, Instagram, on the bus, at the school gates, at work… you get the picture! A huge thanks to you all.

Love from the Brighton5 team x

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We have a WhatsApp group for the core team involved in Brighton5. Most days we share one or more news stories about the current mental health crisis that is affecting teens in the UK. A recent article reported that there had been a sharp rise in under-19s being treated by NHS mental health services.

The article states: “There were a total of 389,727 “active referrals” for people aged 18 or younger in April, a third higher than the same month two years ago, according to the latest statistics published by NHS Digital.

The number seeking help for conditions such as anxiety, depression and eating disorders is rising sharply.”

Meanwhile we push on with getting our crowdfunder video edited, getting the messaging for our crowdfunder page just right, and we continue to meet people, organisations and businesses who are interested in helping and getting involved.

More and more we feel that this project is so important. Daisy and I have wound down a lot of our other commitments and we are making Brighton5 our priority – one that we plan to use as a template to roll out to other towns and cities. It’s a big ask, but we are totally committed to creating a great big positive space for Brighton’s teens to create, build, learn and feel safe in. One where they have a voice and a say in what happens. This isn’t our company, it’s theirs.

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The joys of managing a start-up, social enterprise project are all now making themselves apparent. We’ve been knee-deep in spreadsheets, budgets, video edits, meetings and research, research, research. It’s been a fascinating if exhausting time!

Firstly a huge thank you to those who’ve answered our last-minute calls for help with everything from budget forecasting, legal to editing and music! One of the driving forces of Brighton5 has been the people who’ve rolled up their sleeves and got involved. We are forever grateful.

We’re planning our parent-focused radio show, which we hope to air on Radio Reverb this autumn – watch this space! We’re looking for parents, and experts to speak or contribute their stories on everything from teen stress and mental health issues to body confidence and technology and device addiction. Please get in touch if you have a story, question or issue we can discuss. Onwards!