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patchwork tips

Women toasting with drinks in beer garden

How To Throw A New Business Shower

by Rosie Hurwitz March 5, 2021

Patchwork was designed to make celebrating big life occasions fun, engaging, practical AND meaningful for all those involved. With the world of work constantly changing especially post Covid, more and more people are deciding to start their own small businesses or pivot existing ones. So we decided it was the perfect time to combine the two with our New Business Shower! Patchwork can help you launch and celebrate your new business idea with a little help from your family and friends.

What is a New Business Shower?

A New Business Shower is the perfect, FUN way to launch your new business idea. You share your plan with family and friends so that they can celebrate and support you as you start out on your journey. Life is full of milestones that we are used to sharing with family and friends. Whether it’s a big birthday, engagement or wedding, a new home or a new baby.

These are the times when people want to send their good wishes. Maybe wish to buy a gift, help out in a practical way or just share a celebratory drink or two. So we think it makes sense for the launch of a New Business to be included as a significant event too. Like having a baby or moving house, it’s a huge life event. It often bringing with it a change of lifestyle, a high level of excitement, stress and sometimes risk too.

It’s a time when we really value the network and community around us. Whether it’s for their words of wisdom, a specific skill, a donation of some second hand office equipment or a cash gift towards some new gear.

How can Patchwork help?

With a Patchwork New Business Shower you can let your family and friends know how best they can help you. Their well meaning actions can be channelled where they are most needed and appreciated! By creating a Pinterest board style “wish list” you can let everyone know what type of support or contributions are most welcomed. This ensures that resources and talents are put to good use.

With Patchwork you can collect cash contributions to spend on the things you’ll need to invest in for your new business. You can also ask for donations of items that people might have lying around. For example: spare kitchen or office supplies. Perhaps you know people who have expertise? They could share advice with you over a coffee – this can go on your Patchwork too!

Or perhaps you’ve got friends who have neither money or industry expertise. But they might be happy to watch the kids for a few hours. Or maybe even take the dogs for a walk to give you some much needed down-time.

Patchwork makes supporting you simple, convenient and inclusive. It can involve friends and family who are physically nearby and those who live overseas or who you can’t easily see face to face.

Who can throw a New Business Shower?

Absolutely anyone can. Firstly, Patchwork is completely free to set up and use for you and your supporters. We only make our money by charging a small 3% commission on cash gifts given via the site. If you are using your New Business Shower page to ask friends for non-financial favours or donations then Patchwork is completely free.

At Patchwork we recognise that people celebrate different occasions at different times and in different ways. Patchwork is for everybody no matter what, when, how and why they want to celebrate. A New Business Shower is a way of sharing your decision with your network. It’s marks the occasion with a celebration, and welcomes your business in to your life! Much like a baby shower in fact.

What’s the difference between a New Business Shower and a crowdfund?

They are very, very different. A Patchwork New Business Shower isn’t for raising money from strangers or an equity deal. If you are looking for serious investment or funding for your business we would always recommend something like Seedrs or CrowdCube.

Our concept is about sharing your plans and acknowledging the challenges. It allows friends and family to celebrate and support you on your journey. People contributing to your New Business Shower are not looking for a return on their investment. Well, unless that return is you looking very happy with a huge smile on your face! They are contributing because they want to show their support. And in a way that is meaningful, memorable and fun, and best fits with your wishes and their resources.

Is it awkward asking people to help?

For the reasons already mentioned above – no, not at all! If you send out an email with a request for cash then yes. But a New Business Shower is way of making the act of supporting you so much more than that. It’s bringing all the people that care about you together. Not just to help you with cash gifts (they’re great!) but also to recognise and celebrate the steps you are taking, and to share in the experience – the ups as well as the downs – with you.

The invite to your New Business Shower (whether it’s a real world physical party or a virtual event) is just that; an invitation, not an obligation. You’ll know instinctively the people who you’ll want to include. And they will be grateful to be given your guidance on how best they can help.

Finding a way of gifting that suits both the giver and the recipient is the Holy Grail – and this is it! When you include options in your Patchwork to suit everyone, people can gift you in the way that suits their own circumstances, time resources and budget.

Cleverly, a New Business Shower also acts as a sort of protective bubble for you. In letting people know explicitly what you do need and what you would appreciate, you are also letting them know what you don’t need and won’t appreciate. So you can bid farewell to the unsolicited business advice and multiple stationery sets!

How does it work?

It’s easy! You can use one of our readymade New Business Shower templates or simply start your own page from scratch. Have a think about the kind of help you’d like, the things you need to fund or the skills you’d appreciate from your network.

For example if you’re starting a work from home business and need to set up a corner of your home for an office space you could include options for people to contribute £50 towards a new laptop, £5 to keep the biscuit tin topped up, or some of their time to help you put up some shelves.

When you’ve added all the patches you want to, just complete your personal and payment details. Then you can share your URL direct to friends and family. When they arrive at your page, people can see at a glance all the things that you’d appreciate help with. They can choose which things they’d like to fund, make or do to help make your new business a success.

If they choose to contribute a cash gift, money will be sent direct to you via PayPal or Stripe. If they are choosing to help you out with a pledge of their time or a donation of an item, they will simply be making a pledge via the page and you can follow up with them to arrange a time to suit!

Want to see how a New Business Shower worked in real life? Read the story of how Patchwork launched with a little help from our friends. If you’d like any tips or advice on setting up your Business Shower Patchwork please drop us a line at [email protected].

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Patchwork Loves Wedding Planning

Pieces of Advice – 10 Top Tips from Wedding Suppliers

by Ismay Ozga February 26, 2020

written by Ismay Ozga

Want the best nuggets of advice from those in the know? We’ve got some top tips from our favourite wedding suppliers to help you plan and enjoy the best day ever.

Starting with us! – “The wedding industry can be really wasteful so think about the must-haves and about hiring rather than buying lots of newness and never-to-be-used again stuff.” Olivia Knight, Patchwork Alternative Gift Registry & Honeymoon Fund

Embrace the Chaos

Things may go wrong, but it really doesn’t matter. Everyone is there for you both and you’re there for one another – that’s the most important thing. Lisa Jane, Lisa Jane Photography

You are your style

Be yourself and don’t be dictated by wedding trends. Do what feels right for you both. Violette Tannenbaum, Bridal Designer

Less is more

The lovely people at The Fire Pit Camp say it’s simply about bringing together the people that you love, a good playlist and some yummy food. Don’t over complicate things. The Fire Pit Camp

Take time together

Take a minute away from the day to be together, to see your guests enjoying themselves, and everyone you love together in one place. Jess, The Own Studio

Don’t forget to eat

It may sound obvious, but with all those drinks flowing and your excitement rising, you can’t forget to eat! Keeping you partying ‘til the wee hours. Molly, We Are Planted

Drink Martinis

Espresso Martinis are a great way to get the party started and everyone on the dancefloor! Mat, Ruttle & Rowe Coffee Co.

Read the contract

Read the small print in all contracts to avoid any surprises and don’t be afraid to ask questions if things aren’t understood. Zeleka, Zeleka Nadine Events

Choose the one

Don’t worry about seeing every cake in the country and every photographer’s gallery. Find one that you love and book it. Sarah Powell, Married by Sarah

Try all the cake

Remember to eat your wedding cake on the day – savour the day and the sweet treats! Avant Garde Cake Studio

For more tips from lots of amazing wedding suppliers, head over to our Instagram and watch the video on IGTV.

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Patchwork Perspective

Tips for Creating a Honeymoon Fund with Patchwork

by Ismay Ozga April 25, 2017

written by Ismay Ozga

If you’re planning to use Patchwork to ask for money towards your honeymoon, check out our top tips before you get started:

Keep it simple

Although honeymoon funds are increasingly popular, not all of your guests will be familiar with the concept and some may be expecting a traditional gift list. So when welcoming people to your page make sure you’re clear about what you’d like people to contribute towards and why. Including ‘Honeymoon fund’ in your title always helps. Then you can use your description to share your plans and add a simple set of instructions (so even your 90 year old Nan will know what to do). Something like:
“Having lived together for 5 years we’ve already got a toaster and all the crockery we’ll ever need. So instead of traditional gifts we’d really appreciate a contribution towards an amazing honeymoon that we’ll treasure forever. Just click around our patchwork to choose which experience you’d like to treat us to. With love and thanks.”

Make it personal

Your friends and family know and love you and will want to hear about your plans for your first adventure as a married couple. So don’t be afraid to make your honeymoon registry personal. Use your images and words to share not just what you want but also something about you both as a couple.
This doesn’t have to mean creating a patchwork from scratch. If you know where you are going on honeymoon you can customise one of our readymade patchworks of your chosen destination. Or use our ‘Beautiful Island of Somewhere’ patchwork if you haven’t decided yet. Then simply tweak a few words to personalise it and add or delete patches to suit your likes and dislikes.
You can also add a banner image of you both, a profile photo or even include photos of you within your patchwork. So there are lots of opportunities for your friends to see your happy faces, remember how much they love you, and then give generously!

Spread the cost

The best way to raise the most money for your honeymoon fund is to make it possible for everyone to contribute something – no matter how little. If the cost of all your honeymoon experiences are £50 upwards, you’re in danger of excluding people who will then give you nothing. So it makes sense to offer a range of prices across your patchwork – from £1 for a bottle of beer to £500 for a night in a hotel. This way the people who can afford to can add multiple gifts to their cart – to a maximum spend of £1300 per transaction. And those on a budget can still treat to you a meaningful experience for a fiver and leave a message along with their gift.

Remember people are attracted to beautiful things

They just are. And whilst beauty is in the eye of the beholder, no-one likes a pixelated image. We’ve got a gorgeous image gallery, so whether you’re customising one of our honeymoon templates or creating your patchwork from scratch we’ve got lots of high quality photos for you to use. But if you want to use your own images check they don’t pixelate when you add them to your patchwork. It might sound weird, but people will choose to click on quality images (and give more generously) if it looks like you’ve made an effort to make your patchwork appeal to them.

Enjoy playing around

You can customise and publish a readymade honeymoon patchwork in less than 5 minutes by adding a title and linking it to your PayPal account. But if you’ve got half an hour with a cup or tea or a glass of wine it can be fun to play around. Whether you’re creating a patchwork from scratch or using a readymade template it’s easy to crop, rotate and replace images within your patches, add new patches or delete ones you don’t want. And if you’re a Pinterest addict you’ll love the ability to resize patches and move them around your page until you’re happy with your layout. Just drag and drop them wherever you like and use the pink corners to resize and reshape.

Don’t limit the choice of gifts for your guests

You can set a quantity for each item or experience within a patch. So if you want two return flights, seven nights in a hotel and one tandem skydive you can set these quantities once you’ve set your prices. Just click to answer the question ‘How many do you want?’ and enter the number. Then, once this number of items or experiences have been bought, the patches will say ‘Sold out’.
This makes sense for one-off items or experiences, so that the people who choose to give these gifts know that they have paid for a particular trip or treat. But overall we recommend you leave most patch items ‘unlimited’. Particularly things you plan to have a lot of – like meals, ice-creams, cocktails or glasses of wine! If someone buys you 100 beers it doesn’t mean you have to drink them all – you can just use the excess money towards something more wholesome like a massage. And if six people chose to fund a single boat trip that’s also okay. When you’re on the boat you can take a photo and upload it to your Patchwork account. Then just choose to ‘Thank by patch’ to send the photo along with a message to all of the individuals who contributed to the trip.
Leaving the majority of your patch items ‘unlimited’ enables you to collect the maximum funds and also ensures latecomers don’t try to buy you a gift on the morning of your wedding to find that all the options have ‘sold out’.

Don’t forget to say thank you

You can prepare an automatic thank you before you publish your patchwork so that your friends and family can see your message (and a photo if you’d like to add one) as soon as they’ve contributed. This is this easiest way to immediately show appreciation of your guest’s gifts. But with details of contributors’ names and emails (postal addresses are optional) in your account, along with a record of what they bought, how much they spent and the message they left, it’s easy to thank friends properly on return from your honeymoon, with photos of you enjoying your experience.
You can thank friends via your Patchwork account (individually, by patch or as a group) with an image and a message in an email. And if you’d like to post thank you cards you can download a CSV spreadsheet of everyone’s details from your account, then send thank you cards using our 30% discount with Patchwork print partner MOO.

Ready to start your patchwork? Browse our customisable honeymoon fund templates here.

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Patchwork Perspective

Tips for Organising a Party with Patchwork

by Ismay Ozga April 18, 2017

written by Ismay Ozga

If you’re planning to use Patchwork to organise a party, check out our top tips before you get started:

Keep it simple

The secret to getting people to help with a party is to be clear about the plan, set out a range of specific ways they can help and then allow them to decide what they’d like to do.
Whilst people don’t respond well to vague pleas for help, they also don’t like to be assigned tasks that may not suit their skills, available time or interest. So clarity and choice is key.
Start out by clearly setting out the plan for the party, who it’s for and why. It helps if you can summarise all of this in your patchwork title e.g. ‘Ben’s surprise 30th party’, ‘Kate’s hen do in Copenhagen’, ‘Elise’s baby shower’. Then use the patchwork description to explain exactly what it is you want people to do i.e:
‘To celebrate [insert name] [insert occasion] we want to organise the best party ever. And we’re hoping you can all help. Please click around the patchwork below and show your love for [insert name] by choosing something to fund, make or do. Love and thanks, [your name].’

Make it personal

Don’t be afraid to make your patchwork personal. Use your images and words to share more about what is it you want and who it’s for. If you’re organising a party for a friend, remind everyone how much they love him with pictures of him and an anecdote or two.
This doesn’t have to mean creating a patchwork from scratch. You can customise one of our readymade party patchworks, then simply tweak a few words to personalise it and add or delete patches to suit your needs.
You can also add a banner image and a profile photo. So there are lots of opportunities for your friends to see the giftee’s happy face, remember how much they love them, and then give generously!

Give options to fund, make or do

While some people will be cash rich and time poor, others will be the opposite. One friend might have a couple of hours to bake a cake but not much money to buy a gift. Another might want to flex their creative skills to show their love. And someone else might just prefer to pay towards a barrel of beer. There are times in our lives when we are more interested and able to contribute cash, time or skills to help make a party happen – so make sure all the options are available.
Whether you want to customise one of our readymade party patchworks or create your own from scratch you’ll see that you have the ability to assign an action to each patch. Automatically set to ‘Fund’, you can set a patch to ask people to ‘Make’ or ‘Do’.
Asking people upfront to fund a wedding party or baby shower might feel a bit uncomfortable. So including make and do options in a patchwork removes any awkwardness around the money side of things. While most people will opt for the ease of giving money, they will be grateful for having been given the choice.

Be specific about quantities

If you need 10 cakes made for the dessert table, add an image of a cake to a patch, set it to ‘Make’ and then set your quantity to 10. Then one person can choose to bake ten or 10 people can choose to bake one. Either way, once you’ve got 10 cakes being made this patch will say ‘Sold out’ for future contributors.
In your account you’ll then be able to see the person(s) who has pledged to bake your cakes so you can send individual or group messages to all bakers to discuss the details.
This same principle applies to the 2 people you need to help with decorations, the 5 hours of DJ-ing required, the 15 dishes you need making, the 5 embarrassing hen do games that need organising or the 1 new-baby playlist that needs putting together.

Use your patchwork as an invite

You can add an event date in your patchwork and include venue address, contact email and any other event details. This means your page can act as an invite/event page as well as a DIY party planning tool. Handy, not just to keep all the party info in one place, but because people visiting your page to find out the plan will be inspired to help while they are there.

Gift your party patchwork

If you’re organising a party for a friend, you can ‘Gift’ them their patchwork once the party’s over so that they can read everyone’s messages and send thanks when they’re ready.
All you need to do is ‘Gift’ the patchwork from your account by adding their email address and a message, then they’ll be sent a unique login and instructions to see their gift page. A gifted Patchwork page will show your title, description and all the patch images and descriptions – which you can edit if you like. But it wont show prices or give the option to fund anymore, as this page is presented to the person receiving the gift. This person will be able to see all the messages from friends at the bottom of the patchwork (along with their happy faces if they choose to upload photos too). And then they can click to ‘Send thanks’ when they are ready.

Ready to start your patchwork? Browse our customisable party templates here.

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Patchwork Perspective

Tips for Organising a Group Gift with Patchwork

by Ismay Ozga April 18, 2017

written by Ismay Ozga

If you’re planning to use Patchwork to organise a group gift for a loved one check out our top tips before you get started:

Make it obvious

Most people have chipped in towards a gift for a friend, work colleague or family member before. So the principle behind Patchwork won’t be a new concept. Your friends will be grateful for an easy and secure way to contribute towards a present. They won’t have to do a bank transfer or dig out some cash to chuck in a hat. All you need to do is show them the gift you’re asking them to contribute towards and tell them who it’s for and why.

It helps if you can summarise the plan in your patchwork title e.g. ‘A cot for the new baby’, ‘Holly’s Christmas Handbag’ or ‘A bee hive for mum’s 60th’. Then use the patchwork description to explain exactly what it is you want people to do, i.e:
‘There’s really only one thing [insert name] really wants/needs for their [insert occasion] and so instead of buying surprise gifts I thought it’d be nice if we could all chip in towards one. Just click around the patchwork to contribute whatever you can and leave a message with your gift at the end. Love and thanks, [your name].’

Make it personal

You’re inviting friends to chip in towards a gift for someone they know and love. So make sure your request feels personal. Use your words to share not just an idea for a group gift but also to say something about the person you all care about.
You can add a banner image, a profile image and include your own photos within your patchwork. So there are lots of opportunities for all those people contributing to see the face of the person you’ll celebrating. They’ll be reminded how much they love them – and they’ll give generously!

Break it down

If you’re looking for inspiration for a group gift we’ve got tons of templates for you to choose from. It can be for anything – a new bike, a work of art, a new tattoo, a cookery course, a vegetable patch or a weekend in Paris. You can find a readymade patchwork to customise – already broken down into a range of individually priced pieces.

However if we don’t have a template for the gift you want to fund you can do one of two things:

Create your own from scratch:
The easiest and quickest way to do this is to add a single image to your patchwork page and give it an affordable price – say £10. Then people who visit your page can simply press ‘Fund’. They can adjust the item quantity in the basket to increase their contribution i.e. 5 x £10 = £50 total. However breaking down a big ticket item or experience into a patchwork of component parts makes for a much more fun and engaging experience for contributors. It allows them to choose which piece of the gift to fund according to their budget and interest.

Tell us:
Our readymade patchworks are inspired by our users. So tell us what you want to fund. If we think it might be popular, we will create a new readymade patchwork for you (and others) to use. It’ll made up of copyright-free imagery. Alternatively, do you have a particular image that you’d like us to ‘patchwork’ for you? You can email [email protected] and we’ll split it into 2, 4, 6 or 8 pieces for you.

Spread the cost

All of our readymade group gift patchworks contain a number of different priced patches. You can adjust these set prices when you customise one of our templates. But we do recommend that you retain a range of prices across your patchwork. Whether you customise or create from scratch, so everyone can afford to contribute something. Each patch can be priced between £1 – £500 and the maximum one person can contribute in one transaction is £1300.

Don’t limit your guests choice of gifts

You can set a quantity for each item or experience within a patch. If you’re organising a surprise trip to Paris for your mum and dad’s anniversary you might want to include 2 return Eurostar tickets, 3 nights in a hotel and 1 dinner for two at the Moulin Rouge. To do this just click to answer the question ‘How many do you want?’ after you’ve set the price for each patch, then enter the number you want.

Then, once this number of items or experiences have been bought, the patches will say ‘Sold out’. This makes sense for one-off items or experiences. This means the people who choose to give these gifts know that they have paid for a particular trip or treat. But overall we recommend you leave most patch items ‘unlimited’. Particularly things people will want a lot of – like meals or metro tickets, baguettes or glasses of wine.

And remember you don’t have to be too literal. Creating a patchwork is a fun and practical way to breakdown the cost of a big ticket item. But you don’t need to be too precise. For example, everyone knows a bike has two wheels, one saddle and a bell. But if you want to customise our children’s bike for a birthday present, it makes sense to leave all the patches unlimited. It really doesn’t matter if 10 people contribute towards the basket. Once you’ve collected all the cash gifts and bought the bike. And your child is happily riding along with their teddy in the basket! You can take a photo and upload it to your Patchwork account. Then choose to ‘Thank by patch’. This sends the photo along with a message to all of the individuals who bought this gift.

Leaving the majority of your patch items ‘unlimited’ enables you to collect the maximum funds. This also ensures people don’t arrive at the patchwork to find everything has ‘sold out’.

Gift your patchwork

Once you’re ready, you can present your Patchwork page to the person receiving your group gift. They’ll be able to see the digital version of their gift or experience. They can read everyone’s messages and send thanks when they are ready.

All you need to do is ‘Gift’ the patchwork from your account by adding their email address and a message. Next they’ll be sent a unique login and instructions to see their gift page.

A gifted Patchwork page will show your title, description and all the patch images and descriptions – which you can edit if you like. But it wont show prices or give the option to fund anymore as this page is presented to the person receiving the gift. This person will be able to see all the messages from friends at the bottom of the patchwork (along with their happy faces if they choose to upload photos too). And then they can click to ‘Send thanks’ when they’re ready.

Don’t forget to say thank you

You can prepare an automatic thank you before you publish your patchwork so that people contributing can see a message (and a photo of the person you’re celebrating) as soon as they’ve contributed. This is this easiest way to immediately show appreciation to those giving a gift. But with details of contributors’ names and emails (postal addresses are optional) in the Patchwork account, along with a record of what people have bought, how much they’ve spent and the message they left, it’s easy for you and/or the person receiving the gift to thank everyone properly later.

Patchwork creators and those who are gifted a patchwork can thank their friends via their Patchwork account. You can do this individually, by patch or as a group with an image and a message in an email. And if you’d like to post thank you cards you can download a CSV spreadsheet of everyone’s details from your account, then send thank you cards using our 20% discount with our print partner MOO.

Get inspired by some of our other amazing group gift stories and unique gift ideas. Ready to start your patchwork? Browse customisable templates here.

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