Need Money? Try Crowdfunding

On several occasions, I’ve read about people, even celebrities, using crowdfunding to raise money for entrepreneurial ventures and social causes.

Crowdfunding is the collective effort of people networking and donating their money to support efforts by other people and organizations. Crowdfunding is used to support many initiatives including disaster relief, company startups, nonprofit campaigns, political campaigns, artists, musicians and a host of other individuals looking to get their project off the ground.

Chance Barnett, a Forbes Contributor, wrote a blog back in May entitled, “Top 10 Crowdfunding Sites for Fundraising.” In this article, he lists his top 10 as:

1. Kickstarter
2. Indiegogo
3. Crowdfunder
4. RocketHub
5. Crowdrise
6. Somelend
7. Appbackr
8. AngelList
9. Invested.in
10. Quirky

Chance goes into detail about each of the programs here.

There are a number of other crowdfunding resources such as Causes.com, Pozible.com, Razoo.com, Giveforward.com, and a few others.

Before you get excited about crowdfunding, most of these offer free account set ups, but take a small percentage of the fundraising capital. Also, keep in mind that most of these programs do not award you the money unless you have met your stated goal. As always, do your homework and make sure you are getting the best deal possible.

So if you need money to fund a project, help a nonprofit or to get your business off the ground, consider crowdfunding. There might be program out there that’s just for you.