Fundraising for the pony project - a successful initiative

The project was out of money but there was still more work to be done, so the research group started looking at other fundraising options.

“The project has previously attracted a lot of attention and many people have shown interest in our research, so we thought it may be worth a try,” says Sara Ringmark, one of the pony project's researchers.

Thanks to SLU's Division of Financial Administration, they found a solution which allowed people to give money by bank giro deposit or Swish. A website and a Facebook group helped them to spread information about the collection.

These channels turned out to be quite efficient in reaching people. The collection was only open for a month, but still generated a fairly good amount of money. Thanks to the information spreading rapidly via Facebook, the first donations were made after a day or so, and when the collection ended, they had raised enough money to actually make a difference to the project. We are still quite a long way away from the SEK 254,000 that is needed to analyse all parts of the projects, but as the saying goes; "every little bit helps".

“In total, we have received SEK 38,960! 68 people have helped to achieve this,” explains Sara Ringmark.

The collection money will be used for pasture and faecal analyses, aerial photography of the area and inventory of grasshoppers.