Who are the crowdfunders?

There has been a lot of talk in the media about crowdfunding and how it helps to raise business finance.  It is a way of generating money for a cause, business or social project.  There are crowd funding websites that you can visit which list all of the people who are asking for your support (aka money) to help them either get their start-up business off the ground or get their art seen or their music heard or their film made or their research funding or anything else you can think of.

The people who are requesting this money normally are not giving anything back to the investor in return.  Maybe a coffee mug of a notice of donation on their website, but nothing of true monetary value.  So why do they expect people to donate money to them?  Well it all comes down to human natures.  People innately have the desire to help each other. 

But this desire is not without reservations.  They must trust the person they are helping.  They have to believe not only in their cause but in their sincerity to working that cause.  If the person comes across as insincere or phony or a scam artist just out to take their money then they will avoid that person like the plaque.  So what are crowdfunders looking for and what makes them reach into their pockets and donate for no benefit to them except getting that “feel good” moment that they are helping to make a difference in the world.

Normally these are people with at least a small amount of disposable income.  Obviously you are not going to get people living on welfare or social subsidies to donate to these causes.  They may be the beneficiaries of some of these programs!  You are looking to reach an older demographic.  People who have made their money in life and are now looking back and saying “How can I take the money I made and make a real difference in someone's life with it.”  They want to feel good about themselves and also support a cause that is important to them.

Maybe they lost a loved one to a rarely known but debilitating disease.  They are personally connected to this cause.  They do not want to see others go through the pain and suffering that they did. So they look online for places they can donate to help cure this disease.  Normally they would just search for a website about the disease.  But that may only have information on the disease and be an educational site, not a fund raising site.  However now with crowd funding, even these educational sites can put a widget (link) on their site to a crowd funding site that does have a place where these people looking to donate can go.

By utilizing the inter connectivity of the web, people who are looking to support a cause that is close to their heart can, without realizing they are doing it, become crowdfunders.  They visit these websites and watch the presentations on them.  They think about the loss they have suffered in their own lives because of this illness or disease and they want to help.  They make as small or as large a donation as they feel comfortable with and become crowdfunders, adding to the pool of wealth that is being used to fight this disease.

The amzing part of all of this is that anyone can be a crowdfunder.  It used to be you needed large sums of money and be part of an angel investor group to feel like you were contributing and making a difference in a cause.  Now using a crowd funding site you can donate as little as five dollars and know that your contribution as a crowdfunder is being added to those of thousand of other peoples and that your small donation is helping to make a difference for that cause that is so close to your heart.