Crowdfunding

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Crowdfunding inspired by crowdsourcing describes the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money together, usually via the Internet, in order to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations. Crowdfunding occurs for any variety of purposes, from disaster relief to citizen journalism to artists seeking support from fans, to political campaigns.

1 Overview
2 Examples
3 See also
4 External links
- 4.1 Articles

[edit] Overview

Crowdfunding can replace the need for specialized grant applications or other more formal and traditional fundraising techniques with that of a more casual, yet powerful, approach based on crowd participation. Examples of the basis of Crowdfunding can be seen in Cooperatives (co-ops) around the world. However, the Internet can provide new streamlined approaches to quickly imitating the co-op model for low-level and/or sudden needs (ie. disaster relief, travel expenses, legal fees and so on.). It is this reason that a term be used to encompass the act of informally generating and distributing funds, usually online, by groups of people for specific social, personal, entertainment or other purposes.

Crowdfunding, like Crowdsourcing, is very much related to online communities and social networks. The crowd can already exist as a community but they can also suddenly form from disparate groups around the world who all happen to share an interest in funding a person, project, event, campaign etcetera. The Internet allows for information to flow around the world, increasing awareness. A Crowdfunded network can assemble and disassemble at any time. This is the primary difference to traditional co-ops.

Influence of the crowd is another factor. Crowd psychology sometimes can play a part in the success or failure of crowdfunding efforts. Likewise, forms of Reciprocity (cultural anthropology) is related to the mindset of people who participate in crowdfunding efforts.

[edit] Examples

ArtistShare ArtistShare is a service for musicians to fund their projects outside the normal recording industry. It utilizes micropayments to allow the general public to directly finance, and in some cases gain access to extra material from an artist. In 2004, Maria Schneider became the first artist to win a Grammy with an album distributed exclusively over the Internet. Distributed through ArtistShare she received four nominations for her album Concert in the Garden and won Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album.

PledgeBank (pledgebank.com) while not exclusively for funding has often been used to raise money for various projects and charities. For example a person might pledge, "I will give $1000 to... if 50 others will also pledge atleast $50."

Have Money Will Vlog (HaveMoneyWillVlog.com)is a project that involves a group of volunteers that act as advocates for vlog proposals. The advocates promote projects they believe in to potential donors, whether they are friends and family or reaching out to those who subscribe to their blogs and related mailing lists etc. It's a very intimate affair that relies on Crowdfunding to reach the pledge drive's goals. The first few projects have all been successful.

A Swarm of Angels is a Cinema 2.0 project to utilize a swarm of subscribers (Angels) to help fund, make, contribute, and distribute a £1 million feature film using the Internet and all digital technologies. It aims to recruit earlier development community members with the right expertise into paid project members, film crew, and production staff.

Sell a Band (sellaband.com) is a service for musicians and bands to promote their work in an effort to gain "believers" who will help to fund the production and distribution of an album. Believers must raise $50k in order to graduate the artists into contractual agreements. Believers can earn money back from ad revenue used in tandem with giving away the music for free online at sellaband's site.

i am verity (iamverity.com) Fans can become a "future owner today" by helping to raise $80,000 for recording costs and charity benefits. In essence, the artist is asking people to buy an album before it exists... so that it can exist. Also, 5.3% of money earned will be used to help others succeed (vague). Another 5.3% of everything earned goes to "People Opposing Woman Abuse's" work in South Africa. Once the target of 5000 albums is sold, The hope is to increase the percentage put towards these charities and make a difference in South Africa.

fundavlog (fundavlog.com) fundavlog is an experimental project that will attempt to sustain and/or incubate videoblog related projects and events by growing a Crowdfunded Network offering configurable 'payment pages' with simple funding functionality. Reciprocity and Transparency are the core basis in order to build a trusted attention network of people who are interested in the videoblog culture. Users deposit money into the fundavlog bank which they then can use to fund various types of entries submited by other users.

fundable.org (fundable.org) A service allowing for the creation and management of fundable "group action" pages where pledges can be accepted. If a campaign does not reach its goal within a set time (14 or 25 days), then all pledges are negated and no money distributed.

firstgiving.com (firstgiving.com) A service that allows fundraisers to create online person-to-person fundraising pages for any US non-profit. The funds are directly transferred to the non-profit which differentiates firstgiving from other services.

chipin.com (chipin.com) Another service for creating pledge drives and campaigns to raise and distribute funds. Similar to fundable.org but the main difference is that chipin.com does not currently require a time limit to reach the target amount.

laraghfinance.com (laraghfinance.com) A company that raises funding for businesses using the crowd funding concept, private placements are no longer only accessible for high net worth individuals and big institutions. A large group of small investors can together come up with the total capital a company need to execute its business plans.

robinhoodfund.com (http://www.robinhoodfund.com) The Robinhood Fund is committed to fulfill as many everyday wishes for as many everyday people as possible. Anyone can submit a wish, and through the wisdom of crowds, wishes are fulfilled. Wishes are divided into two categories with one wish from heartfelt need and one wish from simple greed getting fulfilled. "The Robinhood Fund is different because we allow the crowd – not elite individuals such as a board – to decide which wishes should be granted." This is a Cambrian House project.

ActBlue is a Federal PAC that enables anyone — individuals, local groups, and national organizations — to fundraise for the Democratic candidates of their choice. Previously, only the most well-funded and technologically-savvy groups have employed these powerful fundraising methods. But with ActBlue, groups and individuals need only choose their candidates and make their solicitations. By providing all the technical, financial, and compliance systems, ActBlue enables every progressive organization and individual to make the most of their networks - rapidly raising otherwise untapped millions for Democrats in the closest races.