Crowd Cash: Check Out Our New Blog on Crowdfunding
/If you're watching the presidential campaign closely, you know that we're hitting another major milestone in the rising clout of small donors in politics, as Senator Bernie Sanders pulls in a record number of donations—over $3 million to date, mainly online.
Of course, Barack Obama also made history in the 2008 election, with his huge level of support from small donors. In politics, we've entered a golden age of crowdfunding.
Meanwhile, here in the philanthrosphere, the picture is mixed. Nearly every nonprofit institution is excited by crowdfunding, and some have scored huge success—most famously, the ALS Association with its Ice Bucket challenge. But many other nonprofits have been frustrated, and even bewildered, by crowdfunding. Questions abound about who can really succeed in this new terrain, and how and why.
The larger picture is that charitable giving in the U.S. remains perennially stalled at just 2 percent of GDP. While many predictions have been made of a new era of mass giving facilitated by technology, it hasn't yet happened at scale that's really a game changer for the sector.
Still, the tantalizing promise of crowdfunding is only getting stronger. Given that promise, along with all the questions around this area, Inside Philanthropy is launching a new blog, Crowd Cash, that focuses exclusively on crowdfunding. The blog will look at crowdfunding campaign tactics, the platforms people are using, and what's working (and what's not).
We hope you'll check it out!
And if you know about this area, and want to write some guest posts, please drop me a line at davidc@insidephilanthropy.com.
