Hoping to partially crowdfund a community-oriented Permie Homestead.

Hello all. My chosen family and I are hoping to make good on our dream of owning our own land and working it in a responsible manner. We are low-income and hoping to crowd-fund at least some of our starting money through Fundly.

Since my partner, Jeni, has more of a way with words than I do, I will let her campaign description do most of the talking.

https://fundly.com/three-humans-seek-to-start-a-community-minded-homestead-small-farm

Please support our dreams and share the link with all who would be willing to listen. Thank you.

How do I benefit from donating to help fund what I assume is for the down payment on your land?

Correct me if I am wrong, but if 3 grown adults that cant come up with 6 grand on their own, how can they expect random people to give it to them to pursue a dream?

I see some problems here, mostly the fault of our current society, something I struggled to overcome myself.

1. If a person or group of people can't work hard enough to save up $2000 each for a down payment, how can they possibly expect to work hard enough to build a farm that pays for itself?

2. Once initially funding is aaquiredand land is purchased, how then is earthworks, infrastructure, seeds, trees, livestock, etc financed?

3. Crowd sourcing works when the crowd feels like their investment helps a startup, and provides some level of physical return.

I'm 23, so is my business partner. We bought 20 acres in the PNW for $10k down, and $400 a month. We worked our buts off to accumulate that money, nobody gave it to us, and I'm thankful for that.

All the power to you and your family if you can start working towards self resiliency on a handout.

Just be aware of the inherent mental state that is unconsciously created from being "low income", having no apparent work ethic, and recieving $6k from a random crowd.

Rather than trying to buy land, which doesn't sound like it is in your budget, why not lease some land and farm that? Then after a few years of successfully farming there, you should have enough money saved up to buy your own land.

I think the Fundly campaign needs some added substance to get more attention. For myself, before I support anything I look for the following:

--a detailed plan of the vision for the project. Year 1 we will analyze the water and access issues on the land and install the top level swales and the main access road. Year two, we will develop a long term farm forestry area around the top swale and install 2 lower swales to support fruit trees and our first annual garden beds. Chickens will be used to prepare the inter-swale area for planting...etc.
--a fairly detailed plan on what the money is going for and why it is needed and other ideas you've had on how to acquire other things you might need for free. For example, there are folks out there who will give you 55 gal drums to make rainbarrels from.
--specific knowledge that the requester(s) has/have RIGHT NOW that would lead to the success of the project. For instance, if one is requesting money to make a film, posting other films that they've done and linking to them is a good way to get attention and see that they are serious and have a good chance of success.
--I also look at what you have done so far to raise funds as that shows ingenuity and resourcefulness. You three all sound like you have mad creative skills - have you/are you selling your creative goods to raise monies? If you are, that would be something really wonderful to put in your campaign materials.

Jennifer: Thank you for the constructive criticism. It's sort of tricky because we all have experience doing those things on smaller scale but those were mostly things from past living spaces. One doesn't usually document "living my life" type moments that would now be on all of our "resume'".

A concrete plan is also hard to put out because it would depend heavily on what land we end up being able to get, and what land we will be able to get will depnd on what is available when the time comes.

Jeni and Beau both work regular part-time jobs, Beau usually works 2. She tries to sell some of her sewing stuffs but has been plagued with sewing machine troubles all season. I do make welded and blacksmithed art/tools but have been having trouble selling them online. We are all trying to find appropriate works that will provide a solid living wage but the economy in our area is slow so the jobs just aren't there to get. I find that someone would jump to erronious assumption of "having a lack of work ethic" so quick, sad as well as insulting.

I have a number of health problems, both physical and mental, which make a vast majority of standard jobs unfeasible for me. Most notably are my severe allergies/sensetivities to many chemicals/fragrances, shellfish, and cut grass. All of those will trigger massive asthma attacks, throat spasm (partial closure), and/or anaphylactic shock. On the brain side I also have some nasty PTSD, anxiety, dyslexia (broader meaning not just word trouble), and other issues that compound eachother and increase around groups of other people.

The type of work ethic required to entrepreneur a farmstead is not the same as trying my best at something I am good at even if there is no market for it.

I personally came in to my farming career with plenty of hobbies and skills that beneft the development of my farm, but had zero input on the purchase of my farm.

In my specific case, I sucked it up and delivered pizza while pinching every penny possible. In fact retail and fast food are some of the fastest growing and highest demand industries in our economy right now.

I do not mean to insult your work ethic, only to share my own misconceptions of what type of sacrifice was actually required to jump out of a suburban lifestyle and into a farmstead lifestyle.

Without the ability to constantly create wealth nor enough stockpiled to keep the farm until its profitable, I just cant fathom getting this venture off the ground and keeping it a float long enough to succeed.

As for your ailments, the good herb has many holistic remedies and might be beneficial for you.