crowdfunding / Crowdfunding Please request to get permission to edit this page. I approve people who appear legitimate so it helps to add a message with your request. Due to overwhelming amount of requests and spam, I am not activating any editors so instead please just send a brief description and URL of the crowdfunding project that you would like listed here. That is the main reason why people want edit access (as opposed to enhancing the article). Thanks. Contact Michael Sullivan - sulleleven on gmail or @sull on Twitter. This content was written in 2006 and originally added to Wikipedia by Michael Sullivan. 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. Overview Crowdfunding, like Crowdsourcing, is very much related to online communities and social networks. Influence of the crowd is another factor.
Sponsor Goal First Step Is tapping the crowds the future of funding? Crowd funding matches entrepreneurs with members of the public who are keen to investEnterprises pitch their business plans to potential investors onlineUK-based Crowdcube has so far helped SMEs find almost $450,000 in equity funding (CNN) -- Small and medium size businesses (SMEs) struggling to convince banks to loan them money are turning instead to the masses, in a new strategy being called crowd funding. It works like this: Enterprises pitch their business plans to potential investors online. It allows for a large number of people to contribute smaller amounts, rather than a SME needing to attract a couple of big investors. Crowd funding for businesses is a relatively new idea. The practise has been previously used by organizations such as charities, but the internet has allowed for more people to get involved. "Crowd funding has been around for some time, where people invest in art or music and get a print or DVD in return," says Westlake. CNN's Emily Smith contributed to this story.
1st not-for-profit bank open for bussiness The UK's first not-for-profit bank was officially launched today, in an attempt to boost the developing market of social finance. Charity Bank, the brainchild of the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), has been created on the back of CAF's social loan fund, Investors in Society. It is thought to be the world's first non-profit making bank that lends to the charity sector. It will make "affordable" loans to charities that find it hard to access mainstream finance from high street banks. It's chief executive Malcolm Hayday said that CAF research had found a significant pool of people who would be willing to save with a bank that made loans for socially beneficial projects. The difficulty that Investors in Society faced, he said, was that it could not pay interest on deposits and it was not regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), which made it harder to recruit investors. But its growth targets are ambitious.
Business Loans without Banks An investment through the ThinCats platform involves making secured loans directly to individual businesses and therefore your capital is at risk and interest payments are not guaranteed if the borrower defaults and it transpires that the value of security held to protect against borrower default is insufficient to repay your capital and interest. Your experience of defaults will affect your earnings through lending on the Platform. Please click on the "What are the risks?" button to read more. Member of the peer to peer finance association ThinCats are proud to be a member of the Peer to Peer Finance Association, the industry association which represent debt based alternative finance providers operating electronic platforms. Risk warning - please read Investment with ThinCats involves making secured loans to small and medium sized businesses and like all investments that involves some risk. Please note we are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
LEADER Funding « National Rural Network Contents Making an Application for LEADER funding Any entrepreneurs or community groups interested in establishing a business or a service in a rural area should approach their local LEADER group (LAG). Whether you are at a very early stage and need advice, training, mentoring or encouragement from people who know the challenges associated with rural enterprise development, or if you have a project which needs matching capital funding you should contact the LAG in your area. Funding can be secured up to €500,000 for community groups and €150,000 for any private promoter with eligible Farm based projects being in a position to apply for up to €200,000. Where are the LEADER Companies? There are 36 individual companies administering LEADER funding throughout rural Ireland. What type of funding is available through LEADER? There are seven measures under LEADER all are open to any rural dweller however there is one, farm diversification, which is exclusive to Farmers and their families.
Crowdfunding creative projects » | Smarter money | weblog about crowdfunding & crowdsourcing Crowdfunding has many faces; when someone talks about crowdfunding, he or she either means investing, supporting, loaning or donating. The concept of investments, loans and donations are clear, but what is supporting exactly? Crowdfunding creative projects is about supporting: the crowd finances a creative project in return for rewards. “Crowdfunding is a collaborative funding model; many people give smaller amounts of money to make big things happen“ Slava, IndieGoGo IndieGoGo & RocketHub Two open crowdfunding platforms for creative projects are IndieGoGo and RocketHub. “Crowdfunding is there to be able to make an emotional connection with strangers! IndieGoGo IndieGoGo is “the crowdfunding platform for anything creative” and is founded in 2008. RocketHub RocketHub is an “open grassroots crowdfunding platform for creatives by creatives” and is founded in 2009. The numbers Both IndieGoGo and RocketHub don’t charge funders any fee. Successful projects Vlad’s Holy Grail 1. About the Author
Citizens Co-op: Local Food + Community by Citizens Co-op Two young entrepreneurs residing in Gainesville, Fl aimed to retrofit a neglected building space on small town Main Street into a thriving local food marketplace, revitalizing community through both visual and edible art. Utilizing sustainably-produced and salvaged materials - we designed a fresh, clean, and modern appeal for an otherwise low-income sector of town. Three years into the project, and Citizens Co-op currently has over 700 members & co-owners. At our deepest roots, we are cultivating community through the establishment of a storefront that will bring people closer to their food and to each other. The project will offer healthy farm fresh foods, grown locally, and at affordable prices, to an underserved neighborhood while also beautifying our downtown main street and supporting young area farmers. Wall mural in Co-op Market, just completed! Interior design rendering of the Co-op Market: building the community garden: Swallowtail Farm Tote Bag: Brought to you by:
Elevation Dock: The Best Dock For iPhone by Casey Hopkins Thanks for checking out our project! If you missed out, you can get your Elevation Dock at ElevationLab.com, along with updates and future projects. And thanks again to all the backers, these would never have been made without your support. - Casey Wired: "The Dock Apple should have made in the first place." John Gruber: "An exquisitely well-crafted, beautiful, useful iPhone dock. New York Times: "...but wow, what a stand. Gizmodo: "I'm tempted to buy an iPhone just so I can use the Elevation Dock" SlashGear: "Elevation Dock for iPhone blows up on Kickstarter" UberGizmo: "Dock aims to make undocking your iPhone a piece of cake" Jason Fried: "Love the thinking that went into the design!" Marco Arment: "Elevation Dock for iPhone raised $75k in 8 hours" MJ Siegler: "out Apple'd, Apple." Cult of Mac: "Elevation Lab Has Designed The Most Gorgeous iPhone Dock Ever Made" GigaOM: "A dock becomes a darling of the tech world" Digital Trends: "Great design if you ask us. Silicon Florist "I...
Giving More Than Money Live notes from the "Giving More Than Money" session at the Awesome Summit, by Rahul Bhargava, Ethan Zuckerman and Willow Brugh. Matt Stempeck (@mstem) comes to the Center for Civic Media from the Washington activism world. The organizations he worked with always lacked money. Jeremy Liu thinks about professional skill matching in the Bay Area. Jeremy Liu Jeremy Liu starts by asking us how many of us have heard of community development corporations - only a few hands go up. In Oakland, Jeremy ran the East Bay Asian Development Corporation, which ran projects like the Oakland Digital Literacy Collaborative, which offered social media coaching to different organizations. There are about three thousand community development corporations in the US - Jeremy wonders how crowd-sourcing and crowd-funding could influence the existing and powerful CDC movement, as these organizations are often anchor tenants around key urban issues. Emilie Dubois - Connected Learning Research Network