Let us start off by saying thank you for clicking on our Pozible link. You could be anywhere on the internet right now, but you're here with us. We appreciate that. Alright, let's get to it, shall we? 

We’re Many Hands (Clare, Josh and Matt) a group of passionate people who believe that art can change the world. To prove this, we want to build an online art gallery that connects artists, buyers and Melbourne-based causes.

The first step is this Pozible campaign that you've landed on. We’re going to use this opportunity to not only raise money to build and promote our online art gallery, but to also raise funds for and awareness of incredible not for profit organisations here in Melbourne.




1. Artists make or donate art,
2. You buy art on the Many Hands website and;
3. We all do good, by donating 50% of the profit of each sale to a local cause here in Melbourne.

Basically, the more art we can sell, the more good we can all do.

Note: we provide all the "nitty gritty" below.


  

Image source.

"There are communities in Australia, whether Indigenous, migrants, the disengaged, the unemployed—if we are to really understand each we have to get to know each other." - Desh Balasubramaniam, creative director of Ondru

Founded in 2009, Ondru’s mission is to evoke, challenge and inspire through honest expressions of arts & literature for positive social change. And Desh, Ondru’s founder and creative director, has done just this through projects such as 'Voiceless Journeys' and ‘Shirtless Window’. Ondru has come a long way from Desh’s backyard in Abbotsford, but his passion and enthusiasm remains the same. 



Image source.

"We work from a cultural basis to then express that through artmaking — to try to reconnect some of the fragments of cultural dislocation and put the pieces back together.” - Kent Morris (left), Program Coordinator for The Torch Project

For almost 20 years, The Torch Project has engaged Victorian communities through collaborative participation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous community groups.

Although they’ve successfully launched arts based projects such as  'Confined 6' and unique vocational programs with RMIT, they still face challenges around funding and awareness. 



Image source.

“We’re a grassroots organisation in every sense of the word. This means that all projects thus far have been self-funded, which isn’t going to be sustainable for us in the future. The support of organisations like Many Hands is a big deal for us—$1000 will literally fund stage one of our Inside African Minds program expansion.” - Soreti (second from right), co-founder and managing director of IOOW

In Our Own Words (IOOW) is a not for profit organisation that was created to empower the afro-decent diaspora across Australia and beyond. To empower African Australians, they’ve run successful programs such as ‘Inside African Minds’ (IAM); a series of workshops on topics relating to mental wellbeing and surrounding issues within African communities here in Melbourne.

Based on the success of IAM, IOOW now want to expand the program. Throughout May, they’re aiming to run a series of workshops similar to IAM in various locations across Melbourne. And then, throughout June, they’ll be running workshops in rural communities across Melbourne where there are large communities of African people.




We want to use Pozible as the platform to test our idea. So, for every pledge that you make, you’ll receive your reward, and we’ll donate 50% of the profits of your pledge equally to Ondru, In Our Own Words and The Torch Project. The rest of the money will help us build and promote our online art gallery.

For example if you were to make a $60 pledge for an A4 Print of Tom Blachford's awesome photo (above), approximately 16% would go to covering our print costs, 42% would be equally distributed to our local causes, and 42% would go to helping us achieve our goal.



Tom Blachford.



Loretta Lizzio.



And Jarrad Seng.



You can view the art available as a reward via the Many Hands online gallery. 

The Nitty Gritty

Like that skinny latte you have every morning, stuff costs money. And, like most people, we recognise the importance of money, which is why we're here. 

As we’ve mentioned, our Pozible campaign is a bit different in that 50% of our profits will be distributed to the charities In Our Own Words, Ondru and The Torch Project. This then leaves us 50% to setup, build and promote our online art gallery.

Setup:

If you’ve started a business, you know it takes time and money to set it up properly. Given that we’re going to operating as a social enterprise, there is an extra layer of complexity, which we want to deal with in the right way. To do this we need to pay lawyers, accountants and financial consultants who will help us setup the right structure from the get go.

Build:

Once our campaign is successful, we’ll be working with Melbourne-based agency, Love + Money, to design and develop our online art gallery. Building this platform will involve costs around strategy, design, and web development.

Promote:

To increase our impact, we need to build awareness of what we’re trying to do. To do this we’re going to allocate some of our profits to promotion. We’ll invest in content production and advertising, which will allow us to tell our story–and the stories of our local causes–to the right people.

The success of Many Hands, like any other business, is dependent on a number of internal and external factors. However, a key metric, for us, is whether there is demand for what we're looking to offer. This is why we've launched this campaign—we know that if it is successful, we'll have enough funding to launch and an audience to engage.