What is the raise process?

Issuing an investment through Abundance is a simple process. Here is how it works, from start to finish:

Stage 1: Decision

This is when you have decided to issue a public investment at some point in the future. This sometimes involves a cabinet approval, or a full council decision to commit to a public target for raising money in this way. Often this might be months before any investment launch.

Considerations in this phase

If there is a public element to the decision - such as a public cabinet meeting - where the news might be picked up by local media, you may want to consider a press release / other comms at this time to put your side of the messaging out

Stage 2: preparation (3 months ahead of your launch date → launch date)

In this stage you are fully preparing for the launch of your investment. That means you have selected a launch date, and so are developing comms plans and key messaging, and getting content ready to support your narrative. You also need to make the key decisions on naming and branding.

Also at this stage, final details, such as what they money will be used for, and the interest rate on the investment, will be confirmed.

Considerations in this phase

There is not any particular advantage to ‘prelaunching’ your investment - i.e. trailing that it is coming soon. We tend to find there is better engagement when they key details - such as rate and use of funds - are available to use in the communications
- The only exception to this would be if there is a particular news hook that would greatly enhance the potential reach of the investment launch
- In this case, we have the ability to create your website page in a ‘coming soon’ state, with an email capture to ensure we can capture interest ahead of launch

Stage 3: Raise open

Now your raise launches. It will be open for 3 months. Here are some things to be aware of in the raise process:

Your raise might close sooner than 3 months if the full target is reached
There is scope to increase the target amount. If your finance colleagues wish to raise more funds, we can increase the target during the raise period. This is obviously a good vote of confidence, and can form a useful milestone in the raise from a communications point of view
As well as individual investors, you will also receive investment from institutions. This will ensure that you, at the very least, reach your initial raise target by the close date
There will usually be 3 - 5 councils with investments open at the same time as you. All these investments will have the same terms and interest rate (this is agreed by all council’s finance teams at the point of launch)

Stage 4: Raise closed / between raises

Once your offer is closed, we will move into an operational mode. That means that investors will receive regular repayments - every 6 months. At this time they will also receive an update on how the funds have been used. This is something you can produce - our operations team will give you guidance on this.

In this period your landing page will be in a different state to capture any interest from comms you push during this period. Some thoughts on that are here.