Crowdfunding

By: Lorraine Fannon

What is Crowd Funding?

Also known as crowd financing, or crowd sourced capital

It is a collective cooperation, and trust by people who pool there money and other resources together, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations.

In other Words:

Crowdfunding is a whole bunch of people giving you a little bit of help financing your project (artists or otherwise)

It is a form of charity or donation that uses social media, online communities, and micropayment (paypal).

History:

In 1602- VOC (Dutch East India company) was the first to offer shares, through the first stock exchange: the Amsterdam stock Exchange. They offered shares to share the financial risk of dangerous and expensive journeys to the East.

1997-A British Rock group “Marillion” was the first to start crowdfunding in the music industry by gathered $60,000 to finance their US tour from fans.

The oldest share in the world (1606)

History: (cont)

2003- ArtistShare, started formalizing “fanfunding” to let fans pre fund an album for artists.

2004- microcredit platform KIVA opened it’s doors and is now one of the most successful crowdfunding platforms, having raise over $165 million through crowdfunding.

2006- SellaBand copied “fundfunding” with a twist, where everyone start raising funds to record an album.

Examples:

A government that asks citizens to pay taxes is using crowdfunding model to finance public goods.

Kickstarter Rockethub Quirky Fundbreak CatWalkGenius Fan Next Door IndieGoGo Cofundos Profounder

References:

Crowdsourcing.org, A History of Crowdfunding. Retrieved April 10th 2011, from http://www.crowdsourcing.org/document/a-history-of-crowdfunding/3169

Ulule Vox, A brief History of Crowdfunding, Retrieved April 10th 2011, from http://vox.ulule.com/a-brief-history-crowdfunding-1-1097/

Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia, Crowd Funding, Retrieved April 10th 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowd_funding