Crowdfunding Startups Let You Be Your City's Urban Planner. There’s a reason the crowds are said to have wisdom, and why two heads are better than one. Working together, individuals and groups can have a positive synergy that gets things done, so it’s no wonder that cities are benefitting for crowdsourcing instead of just top-down change. Just look at the success of Kickstarter in the crowdfunding space and SeeClickFix in the urban improvement space. These two concepts — crowdfunding and urban improvement — have been married by several recently launched startups, both in the U.S. and abroad.
These civic crowdfunding startups tap local communities and businesses to raise money for community centers and urban beautification, giving citizens a sense of ownership and a stake in the future of their cities. Reviews, News & Press - Aurora. Soul Singer's Blues Receive New Life on Kickstarter - Aurora. Lester Chambers of the 1960s soul group The Chambers Brothers has been waiting a very long time for his time to come.
The 72-year-old blues singer has shared the stage with legends like B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix and Johnny Cash — just to name a few. The artist shared a photo in March that revealed his troubling experience with the music industry. "The music giants I recorded with only paid me for seven of my albums. Crowdtilt Opens API So Anyone Can Create a Crowdfunded Project - Aurora. Crowdtilt, a self-styled "Kickstarter for groups of friends," has released its API to let anyone create their own crowdfunding site. In an example cited by the company, a vacation home rental site could for example let five friends pay their share for a vacation home rental and then only charge the credit cards if all five have paid.
The API is also accessible for crowdfunding models under the JOBS Act. Crowdtilt describes the offering as an "off-the-shelf solution to handle group payments" and a way to provide "groupfunding" rather than crowdfunding. Developers can pick from Balanced, Strip and Braintree, among other payment processors. The API also allows for comments, messaging, updates another collaboration tools. "Think of it like an engine that can power an entire app. " says James Beshara, CEO and co-founder of Crowdtilt. Crowdtilt, a Y Combinator startup, launched in February. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Urbancow. 10 Kickass Kickstarter Projects From 2012 - Aurora. Crowdfunding has become a popular way to introduce products to people directly and raise awareness on important issues.
Consumers no longer have to wait for a brand to innovate a product. Instead, they're finding simple solutions themselves and bringing it straight to consumers. Crowdfunding - Aurora.
GoFundMe: The OFFICIAL Home of Crowdfunding >> - Aurora. Charity Donations & Charity Fundraising Websites - Aurora. Turn Your iPhone 5 into a Notification Alert Light With Sparx. Indiegogo Expands International Crowdfunding Features. Indiegogo, the crowdfunding platform used to raise millions of dollars for thousands of campaigns around the world, announced several international expansions on Wednesday.
The expansions, which include new currencies, languages and localized homepages, aim to provide more customized and efficient experiences for international users. As of this week, campaigners and contributors using Indiegogo can raise and donate money in euros, pounds sterling and Canadian dollars. Between 2008, when the U.S. -based platform launched, and now, the U.S. dollar was the only accepted form of currency for campaigns, and users conducting transactions in other currencies were responsible for conversion.
This would often cost them more in exchange rates, but the new currency system relieves European and Canadian users of that extra cost. SEE ALSO: How Crowdfunding Is Rewriting the Campaign Finance Playbook. Kickstarter Now Live in the UK. Crowdfunding service Kickstarter now lists projects from the UK.
Kickstarter first announced the expansion earlier this month. Until now, users from the UK had to set up a U.S. account to launch a campaign on Kickstarter. There is no UK-specific site; instead, all UK projects are now listed alongside U.S. -based projects. Breaking Good? Scientists Wants to Crowdfund a Research Meth Lab. An evolutionary pharmacologist and Princeton University research fellow Ethan O.
Perlstein is asking for online support to fund a scientific 'meth lab' in order to take a deep dive into how amphetamines affect the human brain. No, it's not a strange plot twist of AMC's hit show Breaking Bad. Perlstein, who earned his doctorate degree from Harvard University, and his collaborator David Sulzer, a professor at Columbia Medical School, started a RocketHub crowdfunding page on October 4 to back a project that could solve a "long-standing puzzle in mental health research. " The goal of the project is to find how amphetamines — including methamphetamines abused by more than 35 million people worldwide — affect the brain on a cellular level.
The researchers believe solving this mystery will lead to more effective personalized treatments for brain diseases and addiction. Book About Kickstarter Fails to Raise Enough Money on Kickstarter. Look up the definition of irony in next year's edition of the dictionary, and you're bound to read about Crowdfunding: A Guide to What Works and Why.
According to author Glenn Fleishman, it's a book that "distills hard-won lessons of successful projects into well-documented advice alongside case studies. " The problem? Fleishman turned to Kickstarter to raise $35,000 for his goal, and this weekend, he failed to reach his goal. That's right: as Nik Cubrilovic pointed out on Twitter, a Kickstarter project for a book about running successful Kickstarter projects failed to raise enough money on Kickstarter. SEE ALSO: About 41% of Kickstarter Projects Fail [INFOGRAPHIC] How to Raise Money with GoFundMe - YouTube - Aurora. RocketHub [Video Interview] - Crowdfunding, advice for crowdfunders - YouTube - Aurora. The Oatmeal Helms Indiegogo's Fastest Growing Campaign, Raises $1.4M [INFOGRAPHIC]
The Oatmeal's online crusade to save the Tesla Tower ended with $1.4 million in the bank, as well as the title of Indiegogo's fastest growing campaign.
![The Oatmeal Helms Indiegogo's Fastest Growing Campaign, Raises $1.4M [INFOGRAPHIC]](http://cdn.pearltrees.com/s/pic/th/indiegogo-campaign-infographic-40750694)
Spearheaded by founder Matthew Inman, the comic site raised a grand total of $1,370,511 over six weeks for "Operation Let's Build a Goddamn Tesla Museum" Monday. His goal was to convert Wardenclyffe, Nikola Tesla’s laboratory located in Shoreham, NY, into a museum and science center honoring the Serbian-American inventor. To achieve this, Inman started a campaign to help the Tesla Science Center, a local nonprofit group, purchase the $1.6 million property. Wikipedia Founder: Online Connections Foster Real Change. Jimmy Wales, founder of the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia.org, spoke about digital campaigning for global health at the 2012 Social Good Summit on Monday.
Gabriel Jaramillo, general manager of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, joined him on the panel moderated by Mashable's Pete Cashmore. Wales stressed the benefits of a large-scale idea, as well as the importance of one-on-one connections during a cause's awareness campaign in order to reach its goals. A cause that has this potential is Global Fund's new digital campaign, "The Big Push," which it hopes will galvanize support and spread awareness among those wanting to eliminate deaths caused by these three diseases. YouTube Updates Platform for Social Good.
YouTube announced two updates to its non-profit program on Friday, streamlining how non-profits and viral philanthropists can use the social video-sharing platform to turn views into action. Starting July 31, members of the YouTube for Good team will host "YouTube 101" trainings via Google+ Hangout. These live trainings, which will take place on the last Tuesday of every month, are for non-profits that recently joined the non-profit program or created a YouTube page. How Crowdfunding Is Rewriting the Campaign Finance Playbook. Politics Transformed: The High Tech Battle for Your Vote is an in-depth look at how digital media is affecting elections.
Mashable explores the trends changing politics in 2012 and beyond in these special reports. Gambitious is Crowdfunding for Gamers Only. A new crowdfunding platform that focuses solely on video games launched Tuesday morning, and offers gamers a chance to invest in titles vetted by a team of industry experts.
Gambitious functions like a donation-based platform, such as Kickstarter. It allows people living in the European Union and eventually the U.S. to invest equity into games, and receive returns on their investment. Unlike Kickstarter or IndieGoGo, however, Gambitious doesn't let just anyone submit a project for funding. Easy Fundraising Ideas that WORK! - Aurora. Looking for new fundraising ideas? Online Donations, Fundraising Ideas & Success Stories by GoFundMe - Aurora. Crowdsourcing and Crowdfunding Explained - YouTube - Aurora.
5 Crowdsourcing Platforms Every Developer Should Know. Marcus Thielking is the co-founder of skobbler, a leading provider of mobile map-based solutions. Follow the company at @skobbler. It can be easy to underestimate the time and effort that developers invest in creating many of today’s most popular apps or services. Gamers Raise $9,000 for Friend's Brain Surgery. In Need of a New Heart, Ex-NFL Star Turns to Online Crowdfunding. Citizinvestor Helps Grab The Ears of Local Governments. Man Behind Bus Monitor Campaign to Crowdfund for 'Acts of Love' Max Sidorov, the man who started the Indiegogo campaign that raised over $680,000 for bullied bus monitor Karen Klein, has set the wheels in motion for a new viral philanthropy project called "7 Million Acts of Love. " iCrowd - Investment Crowdfunding - YouTube - Aurora.