Overview
This handbook offers and insight of the inner workings of the innovative mechanisms “Citizen Finance” and attempts to serve as a practical guidance for local and regional stakeholders. Citizen Finance is not a standardized mechanism for funding climate action projects and initiatives, rather it could be seen in terms of a practice. However, there have been several examples where citizen finance has been used for adequately funding Sustainable Energy and Climate Action projects. In broad terms, Citizen Finance is a form of financing instruments where citizens pool their financial resources to fund initiatives that create common goods. The two most common and relatively advanced forms of Citizen Finance are: (1) Crowdfunding and (2) Financing through cooperatives. These two forms of Citizen Finance will be the focus of this module. The module also provides step-by-step guidelines on how projects can be financed and what can be learned from the best practices and case studies in the European Union.
Module objective
Mentees:
At the end of this module, mentees can achieve the following learning objectives:
- Understand the innovative financing schemes relevant under Citizen Finance
- Recognize the barriers, incentives, advantages, and disadvantages of the innovative Citizen Financing schemes
- Examine which sustainable energy and climate action projects can be financed by innovative Citizen Finance schemes; crowdfunding and cooperatives
- Analyse the success factors and lessons learnt from successful projects financed by innovative Citizen Finance schemes; crowdfunding and cooperatives
Mentors:
At the end of this module, mentors can achieve the following learning objectives:
- Share content knowledge on the topic of innovative financing schemes that are relevant under the Citizen Finance
- Share practical experience on implementing sustainable energy and climate action projects and support others in overcoming different barriers
- Showcase sustainable energy and climate action projects successfully financed by innovative Citizen Financing schemes
- Learn from mentees cities and regions on what projects they want to implement and which innovative financing schemes they want to apply