£10,810 raised | 117 orders | 217 supporters
Thank you so much to everyone who ordered a blanket, purchased one of our other rewards, made a donation to the campaign, helped spread the word, shared their crowdfunding wisdom, and supported ‘behind the scenes’!
I am incredibly grateful, and so excited that we can finally get started with creating opportunities for mothers in Bangladesh to provide for their children with dignity!
Crowdfunding campaign insights
It was brilliantly encouraging:
a) to receive at least one contribution every single day during the 28 day campaign
b) to generate 117 orders without using any kind of paid promotion (which we didn’t have budget for) or ‘influencer marketing’ (we didn’t have any blankets available to give away in exchange for coverage) – especially as various people had advised me that I was being a tad unrealistic thinking the ‘organic’ approach would work!
c) that while I’m so grateful for the brilliant support of family and friends, nearly half of our customers are people who I’ve never met
d) that the campaign managed to succeed despite me perhaps choosing the worst possible time to launch it – just as ‘brick and mortar’ shops (and pubs, restaurants etc.!) were opening up again in the UK – and everyone could finally engage in something other than online shopping!
Our Dinajpur (elephant) embroidery design has proved to be by far the most popular, accounting for 68% of orders!
And our most popular colours are Suriaya (named after one of Bubli’s daughters – Bubli is the third lady on the left in the photo above) and Siam, named after the sun of Shila, the second lady on the left).
The next chapter
Right now, our priority is obviously to get our first collection of Happy Blankets made and in the hands of our lovely customers!
I’m just confirming colour choices – and then I’ll be placing the order with our fabric supplier, and organising delivery of the donated ‘deadstock’ cotton fabric we’re using for the inside layers, as soon it is possible for it to be transported from the factory just outside Dhaka to the village in North-West Bangladesh where our blankets will be hand-stitched.
Bangladesh is back under national lockdown due to surging COVID rates.
Our blankets are entirely hand-made, which means that the mothers we’re partnering with can craft them from the safety of their own homes – the opportunities we are creating are more important than ever right now!
Learn to make you own Khushi Kantha
I’m so excited to be partnering with Yodomo to offer an online workshop – this was one of the rewards we offered through our crowdfunding campaign.
We’ll be starting to develop the workshop format over the next couple of weeks – watch this space for developments!
• The outside layers are made from traditional handloom fabric, hand-crafted by artisans and dyed using certified colourfast, Oeko-Tex Eco Passport-certified dyes. You can learn more about this here.
• We’re partnering with sustainability-minded members of the Bangladeshi garments industry to breathe new life into ‘deadstock’ cotton fabric, by upcycling it as the inside layers of our blankets. You can learn more about our ‘search for deadstock fabric’ here.
It’s not too late to order your Khushi Kantha!
While we’re getting everything ready to start stitching, we’re still accepting orders – and I was excited to receive my first ever order for twins this weekend!
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