This post is part of a group of posts on Crowd Funding which have been linked below.
Article Contents
Crowd Funding – What is it?
What is Crowd funding? Crowd Funding is a means of raising capital by collecting a little bit of money from a lot of people. It’s like fishing with a net, if your net is large enough you can catch a large return.
Crowd Funding – Why is it so popular?
Crowd funding has been around for a long time, remember Jerry Lewis and telethons? Crowd Funding has recently seen a boom in popularity largely due to the internet and the ease of sharing and promoting your cause to a large market. With sites like Kickstarter and RocketHub it becomes very easy to promote your fund raising endeavor to a large market. It also handles all the collection of funds for you, making the process even simpler. With the economy the way it is today it seems much easier to convince 100 people to give you $5 for your project than it is to get a bank to lend you larger sums of money. More fun too.
What Can You Fund With Crowd Funding?
Pretty much anything that you can convince people to give you money for can be funded. Crowd funding has been used to respond to disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Crowd Funding is also used to fund independent film projects, music albums, book publishing, equipment for small businesses and clever inventions.
How Do I Fund Via The Crowd?
First you need to choose a Crowd Funding site that you feel fits your project the best and you feel you will have the most success on. Check out our post on the Top 5 Crowd Funding Sites to get you started. If you end up choosing Kickstarter you may be interested in our post, KickAss at Kickstarter – 7 Tips to Kickstarter Success.
Most Crowd Funding sites have a similar formula. Create a compelling video, photos and text which explain what you are planning on doing with the funds and what benefiet your supporters will receive. Be sure to check out successfully funding projects and get a feel for how they structure their content. Then tap your social networks. Share your Crowd Funding project with everyone you know via Facebook, Twitter and any other social network you use regularly. Write up a nice post about it on your blog. You have a blog right?
Each site has their own specific rules and guidelines but all of these are explained when you create your account. Take your time when reading the sites policies, you wouldn’t want your project to get pulled right after a large marketing push.
Have you had success with Crowd Funding? Or, was your Mother the only one who pledged any funds? Share your experiences with us in the comments.
