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crowdfunding websites

Fundraising for a Cause and the role of crowdfunding websites in it.

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When it comes to helping a cause, the name Non-Profit organization is the first which comes to your mind. It is well known to us that a good NGO devoted for a particular cause would leave no stone unturned to help realize a cause- be it in terms of financial assistance or any other assistance. However, when it comes to gathering funds for the cause, crowdfunding websites play an important role.

Other than NGO operation, fundraising for a cause can also be for a personal cause of illness, or need. However, common to both can be a crowdfund facilitated via crowdfunding websites.

Fundraising for a cause demands the person to get emotionally attached to the cause for all positive reasons. Let’s have a look at the common aspects of accumulating funds for a cause, both individual and for an organization, more precisely with the involvement of crowdfunding websites

Preparation for the fundraising

As an individual it is you who has to decide whether you want to work for the cause or not, but in order to gather funds for a non-profit organization, discussion with the organization on the course to be followed while fundraising is important. The course includes everything from the fundraising ideas, staff involved, inclusion of crowdfunding websites and the procedure followed for the transference of funds. Another important aspect is the taxation involved on the collected sum. Last but not the least, whether it is an individual cause or NGO, it is important to keep a written record of all the processes and funds involved.

Formulation of core plan

The core fundraising plan is the part on which you have to sweat the most. From coming up with a fundraising idea to giving it a proper track, gathering resources and advertising for the day everything requires both your mental and physical hard work. Your fundraising plan should be planned with preparations of public survey such that it connects to the masses, resulting in making the most out of your effort. It should be further kept in mind that if the next is enacted then personnel from crowdfunding websites can also help in making the core plan

Involvement of crowdfunding websites

To make your ‘fundraising for the cause’ a success to the fullest, it is important to attach the idea with crowdfunding websites. The crowdfunding websites offer your fundraising plan an elevated platform which helps it to garner more popularity amongst the masses, thereby, generating fund for your cause like never before.

Motivation for the fundraising

Above all mentioned aspects, is the motivational conscience for the cause. Belief in your cause is the inspiration behind the whole setup of ‘fundraising for a cause’. In the course of fundraising you could take help from external agents like crowdfunding websites, but the successful accumulation of crowdfund in the whole process defines how closely you feel for the cause and how far would you go to see it flourish?

A successful fundraising brings to light a person’s innate qualities that he can bring positive changes to the society, he can or cannot take the help of crowdfunding websites in this process An individual, accomplished in fundraising for a cause can think of taking a step forward by setting up a NGO for a cause for which he feels from the core of his heart.

He is a gentle soul who spends self for the sake of others, and it is crowdfunding websites which assist him in raising the count of his good deeds.

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Why go for Crowdfunding?

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Today, a lot of people think to launch their own indigenous project, but only quite a few are successful in doing so ; most of them are trolled back to drop the idea in lieu of lack of funds. The traditional funding of businesses is the story of past; here we bring to you why an alternative approach of funding a business, project, venture or social cause.

The idea known by the name of crowdfunding is not an alien to people today, but why it stands out of the alternative funding herd is the point of interest in this article. A lot of crowdfunding platforms like Indiegogo, Myefunder.com have raised the bar of funding by introducing the idea of online fundraising. Let’s have a look on why the project initiators are all going gaga over the mechanism of crowdfunding.

  1. Two in one job: The online fundraising via Indiegogo or Myefunder.com is not a mere collection of funds for your project, but the interest of funders gives you an insight of how your product is going to fair in a live market.
  2. Easy to go with: Sweating involved in getting funding through loans and other means is known to all interested and a major portions of it comes from the paperwork involved. In case of an online fundraising through crowdfunding platforms like Indiegogo and Myefunder.com it is a hassle free process.
  3. Getting yourself identified: Once, your projects starts getting positive reviews from the funding fraternity, get ready to handle your fan following. Website like Indiegogo, involved in online fundraising offer facilities to build a community consisting of people supporting the idea and having similar interests.
  4. Minimizing the risks involved: Since the crowdfunding platforms like Indiegogo are easy ways to predict the validity of the project, hence it could be deemed that online fundraising gives an informal certificate of reduced risk in the venture. This scrutiny allows you to take a deep breadth and play safe.
  5. Increase in the number of success: The increase in the number of supports to the project follows with the revelation that a number of people feel attached to the venture and are keen on knowing its each and every update. It is the after effect of the online fundraising that two persons sitting at different geographical locations might feel elated at the success of a common project.
  6. Inherent nature: One of the main reasons to opt for online fundraising through Indiegogo and Myefunder.com is the concept of crowdfunding itself. Being different from traditional methods, crowdfunding gives you an upper hand owing to the fact that here you can target the audience specific to your requirement. You get a survey platform, a testing environment and a bunch of supporters’ right in front of your computer screen.

Crowdfunding platforms like Indiegogo, through their online fundraising concepts have brought revolution in the field of start-ups and fund collection for charity. They have vested the power in the hands of user itself; to be the maker or breaker of their concept. The stronger, the better the idea, more chances of it to get successful!!!

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Choosing the Right Crowdfunding Site

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Choosing the Right Crowdfunding Site

Are you planning to start a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for your cause, upcoming project or convert your concept into a real product? It can be a difficult and sometimes very frustrating to chose the right crowdfunding website because not all crowdfunding websites are created equally. Some of these websites are categorized as “general” where you can raise money for any type of project including asking for donations like you can do on MyEFunder, Indiegog, RocketHub and StartsSomeGood etc. Where there are many websites which are limited to specific types of projects like Appbackr which is designed to raise money for software application design projects etc. So how do you decide which crowdfunding website would be best for you and help you raise the maximum funds.

The following are different ways to choose the right crowdfunding website. This will not just increase your chances to make your campaign successful it will also give the most effective results, for example fan following, product promotion and less fee, to name a few.

Know your project or cause:

The first thing before you start searching a crowdfunding website, you need to know about your project or cause. Is it a local based project or you want to raise money from all part of the world? What type of people would get benefits from it? What is your target market? This will help you to decide the type of crowdfunding website would be best for you.

Know crowdfunding websites

Search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo will list of many crowdfunding websites. Visiting all of these sites and learning their terms and condition, their process to pay out funds and how to start campaign can take lot of time but this step is necessary and important. If not, you may end up choosing the wrong crowdfunding platform for your project or cause, which might be the most popular site but not the best place for your crowdfunding campaign. It is a very time consuming process to evaluate each and every crowdfunding website but well worth it. To make it easy for you, we have listed the following basic information about some of the top crowdfunding websites:

  • MyEFunder.com: Personal causes and any project including both creative and non-creative, equity crowdfunding, micro peer-to-peer lending, and real estate crowdsourcing. Both US and International Crowdfunding. MyEFunder is free to sign up, free to start a campaign and does not charge a fee for it’s services. In addition to being very user friendly and easy to promote and maintain.
  • Kickstarter: Only for creative projects and you must be based in Unites States.
  • Indiegogo: You can start any type of project here including charity and donation.
  • RocketHub: Open to all projects but new ideas are most appreciated.
  • StartSomeGood: Website for international users which is opened for any kind of project.
  • Lucky Ant: Open to all hyper-local projects; must be locally based.
  • Appbackr: Only software and application related projects accepted.
  • Wefunder: If you are looking for equity funds, then Wefunder is ideal for you.
  • NewJelly: A special crowdfunding website to promote artists around the world
  • Cofolio: Looking funds for small business? Cofolio help to raise money for small business.
  • Peerbackers: A crowdfunding site for entrepreneurs “and their dreams”.

Explore crowdfunding website:

Once you know about the different websites, the next step is to rank them on the bases of their features, options, fee and business model structure etc. Explore similar projects and what types of projects got the most funding on these websites. You may have your own criteria to rank each of these website. You will also find blogs and commentary about the sites out there that can provide you with some guidance and insight.

Top Crowdfunding Platforms for Projects

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What are the Top Crowdfunding Platforms for Projects?

In short, they are all good.  It just depends what you are looking for and what you are trying to get funded.

How exactly does crowdfunding help to carry out projects?

Are you one of those people who had an excellent idea for a new business, but had to give up on it because of financial problems? Funding for projects is the most crucial step. ‘To make money, you need to have money’ is the ubiquitous belief in the business enterprise. But there is good news for you, in case you are worried about where to find investments. Crowd funding platforms through the internet have become the unanimous solutions to small business owners everywhere now.

Here is what you need to know first. They are platforms to fund your business. There are many such portals out in the world today. For instance, kickstarter is one such successful portal that has stood by many small ventures, carving their way to great accomplishments. Crowd sourcing is a way to get money, but not without hard work and persistent passion. Even if it takes a long time and many attempts to finally complete the project, you should have the perseverance to do it. Ultimately, it’s your hard work, confidence and strong belief that will drive the whole venture.

How it works?

You must be familiar with the idea of passing the plate around in a church gathering. The concept of crowdfunding is the same. Many other people who believe in your idea come together and pool out their resources for this cause. Sometimes, the result of these generous donations can be staggering, amounting to over hundreds of thousands dollars even when the aim had been just in the tens of thousands. However, it’s unfortunate that a few projects not at all get funded. They are the best examples as to what changes hard work can bring in.

If you think that putting up your project on a famous crowdfunding website amongst so many out there like indiegogo and http://myefunder.com, will automatically drive people to invest in it, you are hugely mistaken. You will have to drive the search traffic of the site to your project. You require creative crowd funding ideas. So, you need to sit down and draw a complete plan of your activities. Make use of various social networks to spread the word about your project. You can tag pictures, videos and surveys explaining why the project is bound to be a success. Concentrate on different angles of the project which will draw interest. So, go crowd sourcing and make yourself a success story.

5 Things to Remember While Building a Crowdfunding Profile

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5 Things to Remember While Building a Crowdfunding Profile

Crowdfunding is a method of raising funds for any business, venture or project. It is regarded as an alternative way of financing small and even big projects. Today, you can find tons of online fundraising sites such as Kick Starter and Indiegogo that allow you to make marketing pitch for your own project. You have to keep the following 5 things in mind when you are creating a profile on any of the crowd-funding websites.

Pick a simple layout

First of all, you have to choose a layout with a simple design. Look for one that comprises of a basic header, footer, sidebar and main content section. If needed, more elements can be added later. Add an interesting title to your own crowdfunding profile. To ensure consistency, give the title of your fundraising pitch the same as your project. You should introduce this title into your header section.

Give a short, but proper tagline

It is also important that you write a short tag line. Introduce it under the title of the crowd funding page of your fundraising website. This tagline should simply be a description of your project in only a phrase, but should be interesting enough to catch the attention of readers. In the main content section, you can make the description lengthier. Try to make it a powerful and attention-grabbing.

Do not forget the Action Step

The Action Step is nothing but urging your readers to make monetary contributions for your crowd funding project. No matter which fundraising website you use, you need to make every step easy for your potential backers; informing them about the links they should click on, the sites to visit and how they can contact you.

Mention the rewards

Inform them on the crowd funding page about the list of rewards that you have, with the bigger rewards for the bigger donation amount. Your rewards can comprise of simple to more detailed gifts, such as tees, key-chains, coffee mugs and pens. Once your fundraising comes to a successful end, you need to spring into action immediately and spend some money on buying and delivering the gifts to your contributors.

Specify a deadline

On online fundraising sites, such as Indiegogo and KickStarter, you will find people specifying a fundraising goal and the deadline to fund a project. Keep your project expenses in mind as well as the potential value of your networks. You should adjust the goals of your project as you need and set a deadline that will make your contributors understand the urgency of the campaign.

Keywords: Crowdfunding, crowd funding, Kick Starter, Indiegogo, fundraising website, online fundraising sites

Top Crowdfunding Benefits for Investors

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4 Ways Crowdfunding Benefits Investors

Crowdfunding is a relatively new phenomenon, and a way to help entrepreneurs and startup business owners gather the funds that they need as initial capital or investment funds. It is well-known that this process works with some strategizing, but many people wonder how this business model actually works out for the investors. In other words, what benefits do the investors get out of investing in startups who may not be able to pay them back in terms of money? Read on to know 4 benefits of crowd funding for investors.

Ability to spot new opportunities

Inventing a new business idea that can work is not always possible. If you are into business, you must already have a fair idea of how difficult coming up with a sound business idea can be. On crowd funding sites, investors can readily get business ideas along with owners or entrepreneurs who would be responsible for the success or failure of the business. Thus, they do not have to manage the business alone. The business idea is developed by somebody else, and even the management aspect is taken care of by that person.

Ability to share the investment cost

Crowdfunding websites such as Indiegogo or Kick Starter allows investors to share the cost of investment. In simple terms, they do not need to invest alone. They can simply invest a part of the money that is needed by the startup owner and encourage others to do the same. Crowdfunding takes care of the fact that the entrepreneur gets the necessary funds for starting his or her business. However, the entire burden of investment does not fall on a single investor.

Ability to get good rewards

Although the crowd funding rewards might not be as profitable as real cash, they can come in handy at times. For instance, a food store might offer rewards to its backers in the form of discounted foods during office parties, holiday events or special family events. A photography business might offer to cover a wedding or birthday party for free or at great discounts. Investors can come across such businesses easily on crowd funding sites like Kick Starter.

Ability to know which businesses work

On crowdfunding websites like Indiegogo, investors can also get the chance to put their money on different businesses and track their success of failure. This helps them to understand which businesses work, and imitate the success strategy of those enterprises.

Keywords: crowdfunding, crowd funding, crowd funding sites, Kick Starter, Indiegogo, crowdfunding websites

How to Ensure Success of Your Crowdfunding Videos

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How to Ensure Success of Your Crowdfunding Videos?

If you are considering starting a crowdfunding campaign, it is important to create a nice video. It is widely known that campaigns with videos make a better impact among potential investors than those which do not come with videos. As per Indiegogo, campaigns consisting of videos have a 122% greater success rate than those that do not use any videos. With a good video, you can enhance the success rate of your campaign by a large measure. The following tips will ensure the success of your crowdsourcing videos.

Create a good storyline

You need to create a proper storyline which is sensible and has a definite beginning, middle and end. It is important to do efficient preproduction and plan every scene. It is a good idea to check quite a few crowdfunding videos before you begin to shoot your own video. Check those videos which are on the similar lines as your own crowdsourcing project campaign video.

Make it simple

It is a sensible idea to make a simple video for crowdfunding sites, without too much of technical complexities. This will keep your expenses down, and also make your work understandable for potential investors. Explain the business plan you have, the problem that you are facing in gathering funds and how you intend to reward your backers.

Demonstrate your prototype

If you are creating a product campaign, it is a better idea to showcase a working prototype of your item. Demonstrate it from various angles, to give your backers a proper idea of the item that you wish to launch in the market.

Get feedbacks from friends and close ones

Show the first cut of your video to a group of friends or even people who do not have much knowledge about your venture. Find out whether they understand the video clearly, and make out all that you have to say. Based on the feedbacks, you have to add some scenes or even delete a few before launching it on the crowdfunding sites.

Use an interesting thumbnail

The thumbnail for your crowdsourcing video should be an attractive one, so that visitors feel inclined to click on it and see the entire video. Use an interesting image that makes visitors feel the interest to take some minutes from their time and see the video. You need to follow the photography rules while choosing the image. The thumbnail needs to be from a right angle, and fully clear. Check a few video thumbnail images on sites like Indiegogo to get an idea.

Keywords: crowdfunding, Indiegogo, crowdsourcing, crowdfunding sites

Kickstarter, Indiegogo or MyEFunder

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Kickstarter or Indiegogo – Which One Should You Go With for Crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding has become extremely popular with new entrepreneurs, especially in these tough economic times when it has become tougher to gather funds for even small investments. Luckily, there are crowdfunding websites available today that have been set up to provide entrepreneurs and potential investors with the ideal launchpad to release their products or establish their ventures. Kickstarter and Indiegogo are two of the best crowdfunding sites out there which promote crowd-funding that is donation-based. There is a long-standing debate on which one is the better site, and the following points can be helpful for you to know which one you should go for.

Acceptance of Projects

Kickstarter only finances projects that are creative in nature, such as videos, music, films, journalism, comics, stage shows etc. On the other hand, Indiegogo does not have any preferences with the projects. It accepts every type of project without any type of restriction. It offers a lot of flexibility in terms of accepting and releasing various project ideas.

Project Fees

Kick Starter tends to charge a fee of 5% for projects which receive funds successfully. But entrepreneurs do not get anything in case their funding fails to meet the specified limit by even a few bucks. Indie Go Go charges a fee of 4% for projects which receive funds successfully and a higher fee of 9% for those that fail to meet the limit.

All or nothing model

Kick Starter maintains it security by following an ‘all or nothing’ business model. This means you cannot get any funds if you fail to meet the deadline. But Indie Go Go proves to be of the best crowdfunding sites as it does not follow such a model. Although this measure bypasses the urgency to gather funds, it proves to be useful in some cases.

Success rate

Of the two crowdfunding websites, Kick Starter enjoys a higher success rate of around 43%. But it has less total number of campaigns, slightly more than 46,000. Indiegogo has a reported success rate of about 10% but it has more than 92,000 campaigns due to its flexible policies in project funding.

User Traffic

Kickstarter has better traffic and more number of users than Indie Go Go. The moderate user traffic of the latter is believed to be a result of its financing strategies.

Considered from varied angles, Kickstarter seems to be more dependable, secure and popular. However, Indiegogo is also beneficial due to its better strategies, features, special algorithms and easier accessibility across the globe.

Keywords: Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Crowdfunding, crowdfunding websites, best crowdfunding sites

Kickstarter

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What is Kickstarter – How Does It Help Entrepreneurs?

It is said that big dreams come at a cost, and if you are an entrepreneur you must have realized that too well by now. Getting your dream projects off the ground is not easy, unless you have proper funding for the same. Crowdfunding is a relatively new way of gathering funds for projects that require high amount of investment. One of the best and biggest websites for crowdfunding, Kickstarter offers excellent help on creating successful campaigns.

What is Kick Starter?

Kickstarter is actually one of the biggest and most popular crowdfunding sites. It was launched in the US in the year 2009 and is now also available in the UK. It has around 381 m USD in pledges and boasts of a 43.5% rate of success. This is a rewards-based platform without any investors. It only has donors or backers. Financial donations to various projects are awarded here with things like tees, movie credits and more. Advanced copies of games are also sometimes handed over to backers.

Main Features of Kick Starter

In Kickstarter, projects are submitted to be approved. As much as 75% of the projects are found to be accepted. The time for turnaround is around a couple of days. It also comes with a unique “All or Nothing Pledging” system in which entrepreneurs do not receive the funds if they do not reach their objectives.

The projects that are submitted need to fit into any of the thirteen creative categories specified on the website. This is one of those crowdfunding sites which are only dedicated to projects. It demands a plan for manufacturing and needs a prototype.

All the awards are restricted to single items, which can be in the price range of 1 – 5,000 pounds as far as UK projects are concerned. On an average, most of the successful projects in the US raise 10,000 USD. An average of 71 USD is pledged per person.

Is Kick Starter the Only Crowd-Funding Site?

Where crowdfunding sites go, Kickstarter is certainly one of the biggest. However, it is not the only one. You can find similar sites such as Indiegogo and RocketHub which have also become global. However, Kickstarter is one of the sites with the maximum media exposure – something that Indiegogo and RocketHub do not have. This helps entrepreneurs and start-ups to get backers and donors easily for their projects. There have been some landmark campaigns on this site, which include Tim Schafer’s Double Fine that have seen as much as 3 million USD to be pledged. There was also the Pebble e-Paper Watch campaign where a staggering sum of 10 million USD has been pledged.

Keywords: Kickstarter, Crowdfunding, crowdfunding sites, Indiegogo, RocketHub

Indiegogo

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What Makes Indiegogo a Special Crowdfunding Platform?

Crowdfunding was born as a crowdsourcing phenomenon. It consists of combined efforts of various types of people who come together, generally online, in order to offer support to the initiatives and projects of various organizations and private entrepreneurs. Indiegogo is one of the largest crowdfunding sites out there which is best for small businesses. Read on and know all about it.

About the Platform

Indiegogo is one of the largest crowdfunding sites to be found over the web. Founded in the year 2008, it is also one of the earliest sites to be founded for this purpose. The site started with the endeavors of 3 individuals, Slava, Eric and Danae each of whom attempted to raise funds for some project that were close to their heart. However, the money fell short and they found that traditional channels of gathering finances were limited. The three began to look for a solution to this issue and this led to the birth of Indiegogo. This crowdsourcing solution gathers support for powerful ideas and can help people to easily donate funds.

What Makes the Platform Special?

The crowdfunding platform has assisted in raising millions of dollars across 194 nations for more than 30,000 campaigns. It is quite flexible, given the fact that it is open for use by anyone from any part of the world. There is no application process and a wide range of projects are accepted, which include even charity drives. For ambitious individuals, it stands as a very attractive option. This is a flexible and very easily accessible platform, which has made it highly popular. Even the fees are on the lower side. The platform initially began with arts although it now claims to accept everything, apart from illegal activities and porn.

How Does It Help Projects?

This is more of a generic fundraising website and is targeted at utilizing the resources of the existing community for helping any type of project, which can either be a film, a cause or virtually anything that needs some fast investment within a specific frame of time. The website charges 4% of the entire amount that is raised in case the threshold is reached. If the threshold is not attained, 9% of the amount is charged. Every initiative or project on crowdfunding sites like these comes with its own set of policies and rules and some of them do not even come with rewards for their backers.

Keyword: Indiegogo, Crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, crowdfunding sites