Is called "crowd funding”. He's a new method of online fundraising for new artistic projects or business ideas that sees a multitude of people, mostly private individuals, contribute small amounts to projects that otherwise could not be realized. The process is simple: stop present your idea on a special website and, with the help of photos and videos, convince the public that it should be funded. Interested individuals have the opportunity to pay contributions in the form of pure donations, but also, in the case of start-ups, to purchase shares of the business. Crowd funding has so far been used successfully as a funding mechanism for blogs, bands, independent cinema, new business ideas and even political campaigns.
History. The first examples of "crowd funding" were seen in the United States where in 1997 the American fans of the British group "Marillion" spontaneously raised 60 dollars to promote a US tour of the band. Marillion subsequently used crowd funding to finance the recording and marketing of many albums, including 'Anoraknophobia', 'Marbles' and 'Happiness Is the Road'. In 2000, the American company ArtistShare created the first site dedicated to fundraising in the music field, followed by others such as Sellaband , SliceThePie, Hyper Funding, and IndieGoGo. In the cinematographic field, the entrepreneur Erik Bowman created FilmVenture.com in 2002, while in 2004 the Frenchmen Benjamin Pommeraud and Guillaume Colboc launched a campaign to finance their film "Demain la Veille" by offering DVDs or a part in the film in exchange . Also in 2004, the British Spanner Films raised over 900 thousand pounds over five years for the production and promotion of the documentary on climate change "The Age of Stupid".
In America. From these first sporadic experiences, sites specialized in all-round crowd funding were born. The first was also born in the United States where Kickstarter, currently the largest website for collecting money for creative projects, is about to collect 150 million dollars in funding for artistic projects in 2012, a figure higher than the total of so-called "artistic grants". ” data annually by the Federal Government. All this despite the "all or nothing" rule adopted by Kickstarter: according to this option, only projects that obtain at least 100% of the requested funding then have access to the money raised. On the contrary, the "keep it all" rule, adopted by other sites, allows the person who has requested funds to pocket the collected amount, regardless of the amount obtained. Today, other fundraising portals operate in the United States, including Usa Projects, which specializes in cultural projects.
In Italy. Kickstarter cousins, such as PleaseFund in the UK, Ideame in Latin America and ToGather, based in Singapore (but with coverage of 18 countries in the Asia-Pacific area) are active in other areas of the world. Italy is taking its first steps: in our country, among others, they are active Eppela and SiamoSoci, specializing in start-ups, e YouCapital.it, a site that raises funds for journalists who want to carry out alternative investigations, not financed by the main newspapers.
Advantages and disadvantages. As interest in this alternative form of financing grows, so does the debate about this new instrument. If on the one hand, in fact, crowd funding allows alternative ideas not accepted by the mainstream market to have the support of the public and the attention of potential buyers, on the other hand this system exposes the creator to the risk that his idea will be " stolen” or can be used for fraud. Caution is always a must.
