Anything's Pozible

Crowd-funding may be more fashionable than a merchant banker's address, but it is certainly an effective way to get much-needed money for individual projects. STREAT, an organisation established in Melbourne in 2008 to support and train young people at risk of homelessness, has just opened its third cafe and published its first cookbook using the crowd-funding site Pozible for assistance. The new cafe is at Melbourne Central - with others in McKillop Street in the city and Flemington - and the crowd-funding site was used to raise money needed to open the cafe through pre-sales of the $45 cookbook. The Pozible campaign raised $41,406; public and corporate support and book sales gathered an extra $240,000. The book is available at the three cafes and at streat.com.au.

Another Pozible campaign with a food focus is for Jonai Farm in Eganstown, central Victoria. Tammi Jonas and her family moved to the farm 18 months ago to ethically farm rare-breed pigs for meat. They wanted to have their first pig slaughtered last November but couldn't find a butcher to help. "We decided that we need to do it ourselves, this way we can tell people exactly how their meat was slaughtered," Jonas says. The campaign is for an on-farm butchery and the goal is to raise $21,450 by June 11. They have raised $9880 so far but receive nothing if they fail to reach their target. The rewards for donating to the campaign include supplies of pork meat, and details of the project are at pozible.com/project/19781.

Hilary McNevin