Strate-CROWD is a 24 months long Strategic Partnership aiming to enhance the collaboration a the transnational and cross-sectorial partnership among partners coming from Sweden, Greece, Italy and Spain, experienced in the field of Non Formal Education (NFE), innovation, ICTs, entrepreneurship, inclusion, gamification, unconventional learning methodologies, businesses and SME, lead to the creation of the idea of a project that looks at the current European needs and that intends to tackle the problems with an impact already in the short term. Strate-CROWD-Funding project (STRATE-CROWD) is a project that looks toward the necessity of support disadvantaged (i.e. coming from a difficult family background) young people (aged 18-30), aspiring social entrepreneurs who want to acquire entrepreneurial and crowdfunding skills and knowledge in order to transform their ideas into reality helped by young educators. The latter’s (aged 20-30), lacking about crowdfunding knowledge but experienced in Non-Formal Education (NFE) will improve, during the project completion, their knowledge and skills in NFE linked with entrepreneurship, in order to develop concrete methodology trough which, enhance disadvantaged young people ideas in the social entrepreneurship field. The pivot element of the project is the crowdfunding, a growing reality in Europe, which can represent the bridge between the ideas of the young people and the concrete realization of them by gaining funds for the implementation of the same idea. The use of the crowdfunding will introduce young people to the labour market which needs to be known as well. For these reasons, STRATE-CROWD will develop Outputs that will support both young educators and aspiring young social entrepreneurs in properly get in contact with the knowledge and skills required for a comprehensive understanding of the market, its needs and the tools for entering in the market. The output that will be created are four: 1) Portfolio of best practices and methodologies linking NFE, crowdfunding and market opportunities, which will be a milestone for both the targets in order to acquire knowledge. 2) Board game, exploiting the recent conclusion about gamification and learning approaches, that will be forged around the development of an idea that has the intention to be funded. The board game will simulate all the steps required for passing from a good but confused idea to a project valid for obtaining funds through crowdfunding, guiding the young people and the educators among each step. 3) Handbook of an innovative training model merging NFE and crowdfunding in order to encounter the market needs through proper means and tools contained in the training model itself. The training model is directed to the Young Educators who needs innovative ways through which approach these topics and through how to be able to properly transfer this acquired knowledge to young people. 4) Digital contents: A mobile application, specular to the board game, available for the major platforms and including a network for peers. 2 MOOC one per target, allowing the upskill and the acquisition of knowledge in the most common way nowadays, available for everyone with one click. STRATE-CROWD Web platform which will contain all the digital contents of the project and will be the digital center of the actions networking around the project. The project foresees to achieve the upskilling of 30 young educators within a Blended Learning Mobility, educators that will be able, in a second phase of the project to transfer knowledge among the disadvantaged young aspiring social entrepreneurs during the local training course. All the project activities intend to have an impact on the targets and on the society around them. Young educators, updated, will be able to transfer knowledge in any contest and toward different targets, having an impact; the same impact that STRATE-CROWD foresees to have at national and international level thanks to the digital tools. Young disadvantaged aspiring entrepreneurs, empowered by the contents acquired during the local training courses, will be able to face the market needs and the labour market, challenging themselves and testing their ideas in order to fulfill the entrance in the labour market which is lacking of a generational change which will bring new ideas and will stimulate other newcomers already in the short term.
Objectives: empower the MTG in funding their ideas through crowdfunding tools and their management, to create a community heading to connect them to their peers and to the labour market through the creation of ad hoc digital and non-digital tools; enhance the STG’s skills and knowledge about fostering their pupils’ ideas from their imaginations to real projects and connections with funding opportunities within the labour market and the private sector through new online and offline training courses; Strate-CROWD goals couldn't be reached without the transnational nature of the project.
Young aspiring social entrepreneurs are rich in ideas and energies but as poorly provided with funding opportunities and lacking in hard skills i.e. entrepreneurial skills as they are with key competencies. A very used tool for funding, nowadays, is crowdfunding. Crowdfunding is an alternative way of raising funds by asking a large pool of interconnected individuals for a small amount of money. That is why StrateCROWD has decided to have this tool as a core of the project. The project was addressed to a primary target group and to a secondary target group: Main Target Group (MTG), disadvantaged young people interested both in social entrepreneurship and as well into acquiring crowdfunding skills. MTG’s needs are to acquire key competencies, basic and strong skills, and entrepreneurial skills in order to create a bridge with the labor market. Also, to develop skills and knowledge about crowdfunding and its processes in order to properly have access to it and be empowered with it. Secondary Target Group (STG) Young educators, and volunteers working in non-formal education/ non-formal learning organisations, NGOs.