Small businesses and social enterprises across Canada have been severely impacted by the recent restrictions imposed on them to limit the spread of the Coronavirus. While government relief funds will help, they may not come soon enough and many businesses may not be eligible or will need more cash than is available. Save Our Shops has been designed to provide some help and relief to small businesses and social enterprises by making it easy and affordable to raise funds and to develop a free listing for shops that are ‘Open for Business’.

We wanted to make this a pan-Canadian initiative. Each platform focuses on a different type of crowdfunding and we want to be able to provide access to all of these in one easy place. Lending Loop and FrontFundr are focused on the Canadian Small Business Relief Bond while Wayblaze is focused on crowdfunding campaigns. Together, we can offer donation, rewards, debt, and equity types of crowdfunding, loans through The Relief Bond as well as a free listing using a searchable map.

All three companies have reduced their commissions significantly, or entirely, so that we can generate the maximum amount of funds for local enterprises. We cannot eliminate all fees as we incur costs from various third parties. This is not a money-making initiative for us. We are working together because extraordinary times require extraordinary measures.

SaveOurShops is a Canadian initiative:

• Listing of shops and donations and rewards-based crowdfunding is offered in all Canadian Provinces and Territories
• Investment in and loans from the Canadian Small Business Relief Bond are offered to shops located in [Frontfundr to insert answer]
• Small businesses that want to run debt or equity campaigns can only do so in British Columbia through Wayblaze

You can contact us through Wayblaze, the host of the Save Our Shops initiative, at hello@wayblaze.com or 778-928-6010.

By listing your shop as ‘Open for Business’, you let your community know you’re still open and can encourage people to support your business. You can quickly create a listing page that lets people know about any special offers, opening hours or social distancing or pick-up and delivery instructions. You must create an account on Wayblaze, host of the Save our Shops initiative, to list your local enterprise.

No. It is a free service provided by the Save Our Shops collaborative

We are primarily targeting small, independent business and social enterprise non-profits that have been negatively impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. However, if you are an individual, a large business or a government agency that wants to raise funds for an Covid-19 initiative that will in some way, help local enterprises, we would accept it.

There is no limit to how much you can raise using donations and rewards campaigns. For Debt-type crowdfunding campaigns (BC only) where the community is providing loans to the business, the maximum amount is $250,000 (twice per year) but you would set your funding goal at a level that you are confident that you can raise and repay, once you resume normal operations.

Because we know that even a small amount of new funding could be critical at this time, we are recommending that you run a “Keep All You Raise” campaign. This means that even though you might set a fundraising target, you will keep all the money raised by the campaign even if you don’t reach your target.

There are no up front costs and we do not charge a platform fee. However, there is a payment processing fee of 2.9% of funds raised + 30 cent/transaction that we are charged by the credit card processing company. We ask backers to add a voluntary tip to help us cover the costs of running the platform.

There is a platform fee of 3% (reduced from our standard 5%) of funds raised to run a debt or equity campaign because there is a lot of extra work to manage these types of campaigns. There is also a payment processing fee of 2.9% of funds raised + 30 cent/transaction that we are charged by the credit card processing company.

Yes. Using a rewards-style campaign, you can give your customers a way to prepay for future services. This helps you create cash flow now but defer delivery until a later date.

Yes. Using a rewards-style campaign, you can offer your customers a way to purchase your products and services. The campaigns offer a limited shopping cart experience to allow businesses that may not have an online presence quickly create one. You will need to consider and arrange for delivery or pick-up of the items.

Yes. Using a donations-style crowdfunding campaign, you can collect donations and donor tax receipt information. If your organization is recognized by Canada Revenue Agency as a registered charity, you can use this donor information to issue donor receipts including tax receipts.

Yes. Using a rewards-style campaign, you can use the perks capabilities of the platforms to help recognize the contribution of donors (e.g. Gold level supporter) or to actually issue them specific rewards.

No, you don’t. You can make a contribution to a shop as a guest backer. However, if you want to ‘like’ a campaign, or make a comment in support of a business, you will need to be registered with Wayblaze or FundRazr, who are hosting the campaigns on their platforms.

Because we need to know that the ‘likes’ or comments are from real people and that one person or bots are not placing multiple votes. You can still be anonymous to other users by creating an on-line alias/personality, although we imagine that the small businesses would like to know who is supporting them.

The maximum amount you can invest in a debt or equity crowdfunding campaign (which is only available to BC residents) is $1,500 per person for each shop/campaign.

We have created an “Ideas & Resources” link in the footer of the Save our Shops site, which you can access here. You must be signed up with Wayblaze and logged in to like ideas, share your ideas, or comment on ideas posted by others.

You can provide a comment on any idea so long as you are signed up with Wayblaze and logged in.

All companies and non-profits will be charged an annual interest rate of 6.99% on loans from the Canadian Small Business Relief Bond that is being offered through the Save our Shops initiative.

You must pay the interest on the loan every 3 months for up to 1 year. After that you must make principal and interest payments so that the entire loan is fully repaid within 6 years.

You can repay the loan in part or in full (plus any accrued interest) at any time, without penalty.

To be eligible, your shop must meet the following criteria:

• You are a small business or non-profit social enterprise.
• You are headquartered and registered in Canada.
• You primarily serve local customers.
• Your enterprise has been negatively impacted by Covid-19.
• You were a “going concern” enterprise prior to the pandemic.
• You must meet the credit risk requirements of the Relief Bond managers.

To be eligible you must also run a crowdfunding campaign (which can be a donations-, rewards-, debt- or equity-type of crowdfunding campaign) to demonstrate community support.

Once you have set up your crowdfunding campaign, you can apply for a loan of up to $50,000 from the Canada Small Business Relief Bond. You will need to raise a minimum of $10,000 through your crowdfunding campaign to begin receiving Relief Bond loan funds. If your application for funding through the Relief Bond is accepted, you will be eligible to receive a minimum of $100 in loan funds for every person that backs your crowdfunding campaign (subject to fund availability).
The first tranche of loan funds will be paid out when the local enterprise reaches the $10,000 crowdfunding threshold. Subsequent tranches will be paid out on the earlier of 1) the campaign end date or 2) every 90 days.