Goska and Mo checking out the new cameras donated by FujiFilm for the mentoring group. After paying the contest winners and production costs, calendar money goes towards expanding the project to empower people affected by homelessness through art and photography. Photo Neil Cordell.
As we are a social enterprise, our priority is to share the success with the people who worked on the project.
The Kickstarter ends on Saturday morning, September 10, 2016. So far we have raised £6,433, but we hope this total will increase before then. Of the total amount:
- £1,750 goes towards the prize money for the contest’s Top 20 photographers
- about 9% of the final total goes to pay Kickstarter and Visa
- about £1,200 is for postage costs
- every photograph sold though the Kickstarter earns the photographer £8.50. By Monday September 4 that was £527 in 62 photograph orders.
The rest of the money goes towards printing 6,000 calendars. So, we have raised about £2,376 towards our printing bill so far. If we keep selling strongly on Kickstarter before this Saturday we will have enough to pay the first 1/3 of the printing bill and the rest will be paid from selling in the market from 10 October. All the money earned will go towards paying for the printing of the calendar which will cost about £11,000.
Once we’re in the market selling we will continue to pay off the printing bill until we are making a profit. We are printing 6,000 calendars and we will need to sell 1,725 calendars in the market to break even. We will be selling the calendar online from September 11 until Christmas as well.
Vendors who work on the market stall are self employed and earn a percentage of each sale they make (50%), so the person affected by homelessness earns £5 and Cafe Art earns £5 from each calendar.
Selling the calendar in the market and on the street
Calendar sales training starts in a few weeks. Vendors will be given four-hour slots on Saturday and Sundays. This year we will offer the vendors the chance to sell the calendar on the streets of London too, using the same bylaws and selling model as The Big Issue newspaper.
Profits let us do what we are focusing on achieving for people affected by homelessness: we not only set up a photography training course, but we were able to buy new picture frames and focus on our goals to empower people affected by homelessness though art.
Order the 2017 MyLondon calendar on Kickstarter before September 10 and save 10%!