Published by BARONMAG
Good Bye spaghetti dinner, bake sale and selling cookies door to door. From the concepts of philanthropy, collective work and cooperative, participative financing or “Crowdfunding” is the system of fundraising that is gaining huge popularity these days.
This approach provides funding for projects by making an appeal to a large number of people (network of contacts, friends, internet users etc.) to make small and medium investments.
The fundraising campaigns take place almost exclusively on the internet. Those who are the most successful know how to capitalize on viral marketing web content and the scope for social networks. The formula is simple in theory: the project is registered on one or more “Crowdfunding” platforms, a threshold and a date before which the threshold must be reached in order for the project to be viable (D-Day) is fixed and the project is promoted to create a community of members who participate in the project with financial donations.
The contribution is fixed from the beginning by the project leader. The project must be attractive and create desire and interest among people. The promises of eternal recognition are not welcome, rather it is better to stay within the tangible (project-related) or service (related to skills or knowledge) related promises. If a project does not reach its financial target before the D-Day, donations are not taken. It really is all or nothing.
There are more and many platforms for “crowdfunding.” coming up. Filmmaker looking to produce short films, technician with a revolutionary idea for an application, there is something for everyone.
Initially it was only accessible to projects in the United States or Europe, Canadians are now can now participate. Some of today’s competitive platforms are Kickstarter (launched in April 2009 by Perry Chen, Yancey Strickler and Charles Adler), Indiegogo (launched in 2008 by Danae Ringelmann, Slava Rubin and Eric Schell) and Touscoprod (launched in 2009 by Nicolas Bailly and Matthias Lavaux). Quite a number of local artists and entrepreneurs have used these platforms, including Xavier Dolan, for the production of Laurence Anyways, folk singer Katie Moore (known for her collaborations with Patrick Watson, Socalled and Plants and Animals) for her album Montebello and the cultural and society magazine New Project was funded with Kickstarter.com.