Four Tools for Crowdsourced Funding
If you're familiar with the overseas micro-lending space, then you're familiar with Kiva. In 2008, ReadWriteWeb readers chose Kiva as one of their favorite Web 2.0 apps. In 2009, the company continues to thrive.
Kiva initially allowed users to lend to entrepreneurs in developing countries. However, due to the American financial crisis, the company recently extended its mandate to help US entrepreneurs gain access to micropayment loans. As millions struggle to execute on their dream projects, a number of crowd-based funding options have emerged. Below are a few of these tools.
1. Kickstarter: With the help of Upcoming founder Andy Baio as it's CTO, Kickstarter offers artists and designers the opportunity to raise funding from multiple donation sources. Manhattan-based Ben Smyth raised more than $3000 to install a summer wedding chapel in his storefront gallery. After donations from 49 backers, Smyth has already transformed his space and married 12 couples since his July art opening.
2. Spot.Us: Spot.Us harnesses "community-powered reporting" by allowing the public to commission news stories. Filmmakers and reporters pitch the public on stories, and public donors commission their favorite story ideas. In this way, environmental organizations and under-funded advocacy groups pool their resources to collectively fund issues-based investigations. If a group wants exclusive rights to a story, they must fund at least 50% of that story's production costs.
3. SellABand: SellABand helps musicians crowdsource funding for their next albums. While Bandcamp, Amie Street and MixMatchMusic allow fans to donate after tracks have been laid down, SellABand specializes in the pre-recording phase. The service offsets the high costs of studio time and sound engineering. A number of SellABand artist albums are available on Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon US and Dutch-based Bol.com.
4. Contenture: Contenture is a micropayment service that allows content creators to monetize their sites. Users pay a monthly fee and their money is distributed to the sites they visit the most. Groups like Silicon Florist and Hashtags.org use Contenture simply by adding a line of code to their sites. In this way the most popular service members earn cash for their traffic. TipJoy also offered a micropayment tipping service to content producers; however, the company unfortunately announced plans to close a few days ago.
In addition to our 4 examples, we know there are a number of professionals who are crowdsourcing their funding efforts. From TwitPay to Tipit, let us know your favorite tools and what you're working on in the comments below.
Photo Credit: Lead image courtesy of Bradley Gordon
Share
Facebook
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
I've been thinking about giving Spot.Us a try since moving to Capitol Hill a few months back, but was skeptical about it. The RWW bump, of course, changes things; puts it on my "To Try" Taskodone on this, my day off. Cheers, Dana. Keep 'em comin'.
TweetBrain http://tweetbrain.com is a crowdsourcing service powered by the Twitter user community. It facilitates people to ask questions, get answers, and earn money from answering questions posted with a reward. It has micropayment, voting and privacy protection systems integrated.
Great post
Thanks for the nice post.
A comprehensive list of crowdsourced funding organizations would not be complete without Cambrian House. While they don't apply a micropayments model, they do connect funders with seekers of not only funding, but also in kind services like legal, marketing, and software development, in a crowdsourcing model.
I'd like to suggest MicroPlace for an honorable mention. Kiva is great if you really want to get involved and pick each and every person you want to fund. I put $1k in. Then I discovered MicroPlace, which is owned by eBay. I put $30k into two 'funds' which get 5% or 6% return over 4 years. I like eBays version of Kiva because I am hands-off, I just know my money is doing good ALL the time. Not sitting waiting to be reinvested. And I like MicroPlace because, I'm staying ahead of inflation and making a few bucks as well.
Video Game developers are also tapping not only crowdsourced funding, but also game development. For an industry where upfront development costs can easily exceed $1 million for even a flop of a game, this may be a solution in such harsh economic times. Check it out: http://bit.ly/kTaKT
Great article, as someone who works at a crowdsourcing company that creates original advertising and marketing content, your last paragraph really resonated with me. I think having simple templates where people then simply add text is a disappointing result of many online crowdsourcing sites. Having footage of a bottle pouring wine into a glass, and then a wine seller overlays text over it for a fee is not as compelling as having 20 original videos from 20 original artists is far superior. From that model you have a higher likelihood of content that is unique to company and their brand identity.