The former College of Teachers is being reborn as the College of Teaching. The college will be completely independent of government and must be self-financing. Its focus will be to provide a structured accreditation scheme through a backbone of CPD. The Claim your College campaign has set out to raise awareness among the whole profession of the new body. In September 2015 a crowdfunding platform was launched and the College needed a comprehensive engagement with anyone connected with education.

EdCo has joined a small cohort of companies providing substantial pro bono services to the campaign as it has no initial funding. Our first activity has been to establish what awareness already exists of the campaign, whether the profession has any appetite for paying a voluntary subscription and critically if they would support a crowdfunding initiative. We launched an online survey distributing the invitation to take part to over 300,000 teachers.

Over 12,000 teachers responded providing an incredibly robust result for the College. The analysis was broken down regionally and by funding status and proved conclusively that there is strong desire for the college to proceed. It also shows there is a willingness to pay for membership and support crowdfunding. The analysis was featured in the TES and has been instrumental in providing reassurance to all stakeholders of the College’s place in the future of education.

For the crowdfunding campaign EdCo have evolved and will be delivering an intensive communication strategy to complement the PR and media work being done by the other pro bono partners involved. We have developed an on-line registration scheme linked directly to the Education List so teachers and anyone associated with education can easily register their interest to be kept informed and play their part in the birth of this exciting organisation. The registration scheme will allow us to monitor penetration and engagement and ensure communications are targeted, appropriate and effective.