Crowdfunding: Kickstarter

An example of positive trends that involve a large group of people online is crowdfunding. The idea is to support an artist, an entrepeneur, a charity or help someone fufill their lifetime dream with a simple donation. This is because so many times people have great ideas, but no resources to fund it. What the concept really relies on, is the power of the internet in connecting people, strangers in this case, for one cause.

The most famous and successful platform is probably Kickstarter. According to the website, since its’ launch in 2009, ”10 million people have backed a project, $2.2 Billion has been pledged, and 101,065 projects have been successfully funded”.

It is amazing how many people genuinely offered money without asking for anything in return. What is more, is that each artist or businessman has complete control over their project. ”The backers” have only the role to back, they don’t get to have a say in the projects.

What I love about Kickstarter is that it’s all about the creativity. Many other crowdfunding pages focus more on charity and philantropy, but here the general purpose is to spread innovation and kick it off to become global, thanks to a global community.

On the one hand it may be a limitation: if there were more charity campaigns, there would be more funds circulating and more influential people. On the other hand, it makes the fundrasing more genuine and different. There already many charities, but very few places to go and raise funds for your ideas.