A crowdfunding campaign built around a call for Gen Z financial literacy education
Read how our S Nekrachni to zvládnu campaign went and what happened to the money we raised.
Brief
The OSF Foundation – through its Stronger Roots programme – gave us the funds to run a crowdfunding campaign. Besides raising money to expand our mobile app, we focused on building our community of donors and supporters. We wrapped it all up under the campaign S Nekrachni to zvládnu (With Nekrachni, I've got this). And we pulled it off! 🤩
We delivered
campaign strategy
claim and concept
graphics and creative
video production
donio fundraiser
social media
paid advertising
newsletters
press conference
community building
Results
The fundraiser on Donio brought in over CZK 100,000 – we beat the target by more than CZK 4,000 and paid for two new courses in the app. The campaign also built a community of donors and, thanks to the press conference, reached Czech Radio, the print edition of Respekt and the TV discussion show Máte slovo.
The partnership and the campaign results
OSF Foundation – the Stronger Roots programme
gave us CZK 100,000 to run the campaign
helped us build a community of donors – through mentoring during the campaign and at offline training in Pardubice
Campaign results
A successful fundraiser on the Donio platform – we raised over CZK 100,000 to develop the Nekrachni mobile app.
We built a community of supporters and donors.
We reached not only Gen Z but their parents too – spreading awareness of the Nekrachni mission.
The campaign also included a press conference where we tied financial literacy to the findings of our Jak se učíme my (How We Learn) research.
We brought the importance of a financially literate generation into public debate.
How do you reach Gen Z and their parents at once?
Or: finding a theme and building bridges
The search for the campaign's theme and central idea came out of 3 main goals:
Raise awareness of Nekrachni, our mission and our work – among Gen Z, but also among their parents.
Build a community of supporters and donors, above all among parents.
Grow the number of active users of our mobile app.
So we put our heads together and worked out how to connect these two audiences – and succeed with the fundraiser on top of that. The target was CZK 100,000. That amount covers the production of 2 educational courses in the mobile app. But we're getting ahead of ourselves! At this point we were still working out the campaign strategy and moodboard. How do you reach people and convince them to chip in?
The OSF Foundation put match funding on the table. They contribute CZK 100,000 towards a campaign to build a community of supporters = that is our campaign budget. And the goal is to raise the same amount in the fundraiser – which then pays for the development of the Nekrachni app.
What each group wants and worries about
We did our research across both audiences, took our historical data and checked whether it was ready for the bin (no, it still holds up 😉). Here are the needs the campaign set out to address.
💥 Bingo! They want to manage it! And we're the ones who help them do it.
👦🏼 Gen Z
They are mainly interested in investing and managing a personal budget efficiently while studying. They also want to keep enough money to enjoy life – not to pinch every single crown.
🧑🏼 Their parents
They try to give their children the best possible start in life, which is why they emphasise financial security, saving and investing. They care about how their children handle money.
👉🏼 We have our campaign claim. S Nekrachni to zvládnu.
”
Vojta Drašnar, CMO Nekrachni
In the end we extended the claim S Nekrachni to zvládnu across all of our communication. We always tie it to a specific area – investing, car insurance or handling a crisis, for example. It points to the helping hand we offer as Nekrachni. Not just to young people, but to their parents too. To be concrete: with Nekrachni they (your children) can manage to make it through the month on their budget. We give them the know-how and best practices to do it.
And now let's connect it to the crowdfunding: please help us build a financially literate generation that your children will be part of. We have a fundraiser, and the money will go into developing the mobile app – the one helping your children step into the adult world of money. They've got this.
Preparing, launching and running the campaign
The moodboard is done, so graphics and video production take over. The CZK 100,000 we received from the OSF Foundation is the budget for the entire campaign. It has to cover the creative work, the advertising budget, our colleagues' time… and the press conference too (more on that later 🤓). So it is no exaggeration to say that every crown counts.
But it looks great, doesn't it? 🤩
The campaign ran mainly on social media. We also reached out to our partners and existing supporters through newsletters.
The press conference – a must have
Who spreads brand awareness better… than the media? And not just social media, but online news, radio… and even television. Why the “even”? Because during the campaign we made it onto the discussion show Máte slovo. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. 😇 How did we get there?
We want to get into the media – which means we need to interest journalists. So we tie our crowdfunding campaign S Nekrachni to zvládnu to our Jak se učíme my research. That is a topic they are happy to put on their publishing plans.
We book a venue at the Scout Institute on Old Town Square, write a press release and follow up with journalists. We also use ČTK and Facebook ads. The press conference is hosted by Lukefry (YouTuber Lukáš Fritscher).
D-day arrives. The room had 30 seats… and it was not enough. 🫣 The lesson for next time: better a half-empty larger hall than an overcrowded smaller one.
After the press conference, all it takes is a few hours. Nekrachni shows up on Czech Radio and in the roundup of 5 Czech news stories in the print edition of the weekly Respekt.
Later comes an invitation to the discussion show Máte slovo. And above all – the amount raised on Donio keeps climbing! 🤘🏼
”
Maria Šimůnková, CEO Nekrachni
AI in education was resonating exactly in February, when changes to the national curriculum were being debated. Yet hardly anyone asked students how they actually want to learn. Their voice was missing from the public conversation. That is also why we tied the S Nekrachni to zvládnu campaign to research into Gen Z learning habits – and probably why far more journalists turned up than we expected. We enriched the public debate with the specifics of how young people learn, which the curriculum changes have to reflect.
Three months on, it's successfully done. Well… actually it isn't… 😁
It was close. But in the end we passed the target by more than CZK 4,000. We're thrilled, thank you so much! We launched a vote – which two topics do you want in the app? The winners were:
What awaits you after school?
How much does a child cost?
A less pleasant part of the campaign was the reaction on social media.
Here is how Kuba Rychlý responded. You can find the full post on LinkedIn.
“So why did you run a fundraiser when you've already raised over 20 million?”
“On top of that you got over 15 million from Google.”
“Go earn a living with your hands, stop living off other people!”
“What do you need more money for? A few videos and PDF leaflets don't cost that much.”
“Why on earth do you need THAT much money?!”
In 2023 we received EUR 600k from Google.org (Google's philanthropic arm) to cover our work for the following 3 years. That grant funds the development of the app and the content inside it. 📱 That content is free – just like the app.
Three years is definitely not enough for producing content. Cover all of personal finance? Every topic needed to prepare Gen Z for the pitfalls of adult life? So they understand investing? So they know their rights at work?
So both before and now we look for money elsewhere too. That is why the S Nekrachni to zvládnu campaign is running.
The 20 million raised so far is spread across 6 years in total. A few examples of why on earth so much money, and why another fundraiser:
💰 Creating one course in the app costs us roughly CZK 50,000
💰 CZK 4,000 covers the cost of one workshop for schools
💰 CZK 8,000 covers the cost of producing one teaching resource, including a classroom video, built around working with the Nekrachni app.
Let me add that people work here. Being a non-profit does not mean doing things for free… 😊 So those millions also cover salaries. Nekrachni is an employer like any other.
Our goal is to get as many users as possible onto the app. The more young people it helps, the more the ranks of a financially literate generation grow in Czechia. That is one of the reasons the content is free – we want it to be available to everyone. And it would not work without the millions. We have a commitment to help the whole country. Almost 80,000 secondary school students leave school every year. Few of them feel confident about their money. We help them with free content – content that has to be produced. And paid for.
The work on the app and its content never ends. Just look at how many new products the banks keep launching… Building financial literacy means reacting to what is happening. On the platforms where our audience is, in the app… Almost a carpet bombing. Constant education.
👉🏼 Be available to those who want to make ends meet – so they hear about us and find what they need.
👉🏼 And also spark the need to get their money under control. To deal with it before the debts arrive.
We have no income from selling the app. 🤨 It always has been and always will be free, and you will not find a single product from bank X or bank Y in it. We give independent, expert-verified information. It lets young people compare banks X and Y. And get the better deal.
”
Kuba Rychlý, Nekrachni
Is it a lot of millions? It is, no question. But Czechia has an enormous deficit in financial literacy. It's a long game, but it matters, and we believe in it.
Thanks to everyone for the support! 😊
Thank you
Once again we want to say a HUGE THANK YOU for the support (to the OSF Foundation) in the Stronger Roots programme, which is funded by the European Union – without it the campaign would never have happened. And thank you for all the help with running it. 🫶🏼
We are also sending a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who backed our fundraiser financially. 💚 We managed it. And now others are managing it with Nekrachni.
