The Arkbound Foundation has launched its new crowdfunding and crowdpublishing platform, Crowdbound.

Crowdbound is designed to support books covering social or environmental themes, by authors who come from disadvantaged or under-represented backgrounds. It also seeks to support a range of projects linked to social inclusion and environmental sustainability, which would otherwise struggle to raise funding. Backers can donate to different campaigns, with reward platforms available.

The Arkbound Foundation is a registered charity, based in Glasgow and Bristol, aiming to improve accessibility and diversity within literature and journalism. Through Crowdbound, they provide ongoing and structured support to each campaign; this can range from social media promotion and one to one advice, to contacting other organisations who can support a campaign, and even providing match funding.

Once creators have registered with the Crowdbound platform, they can submit their idea for a crowdfunding campaign. There is no registration fee, or fees at the start of any campaign – only 1% of the funds raised, at the end of the campaign.

The Arkbound Foundation team reviews ideas within 2 weeks of submission. If an idea is eligible, they will work with creators on making the best possible campaign, and promoting it widely. After the campaign is over, creators can collect the funds raised, and Arkbound will help disburse any rewards to backers.

For books, the Arkbound team will suggest a target to cover the publishing costs; anything raised over this target, creators keep, and for projects, creators keep all funds raised through the platform. The only subtraction is the 1% at the end of the campaign. Additionally, as a registered charity, in most cases Arkbound can apply Gift Aid to contributions, which adds 25p to each £1 raised.

For further information, including how to register or begin a campaign, please visit the Crowdbound website.