Innovation in Giving

Could crowd-funding change the world?

Jon Kingsbury - 01.11.2011

Margaret Mead, the celebrated cultural anthropologist once said that "A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever did". It's a quote that has probably caused a lot of heated arguments in pubs. But in the internet age, I wondered whether global connectivity has now finally put this assertion to bed, and in particular, the potential of crowd-funding to change the world with the help of hundreds or thousands of supporters.

Crowd-funding describes the concept of people pooling their time, co-operation and importantly money to support initiatives led by others to help get them off the ground.

The internet of course makes this very easy - in theory. Whether it is developing open source software, or providing cash to seed-fund new film productions, being able to promote your project to a global audience on the web to get backing has never been easier. Add to that the ability to use social media to shout about your project to friends, family and their wider networks and there is an unprecedented potential for collectively making a project happen. The fact that even strangers can and do financially support your project gives at least some reassurance that your idea might be a good one.

Crowd-funding has been around for a number of years and it has been used in a variety of ways. Fancy funding artistic works? Then get some tips from Spanner Films, WeDidThis or the USA darling of the crowd-funding world, Kickstarter. If you're more into crowd-funding new business ideas (and fancy talking a slice of equity in the venture), then try crowdcube.

NESTA is supporting a new website for crowd-funding innovative projects which generate public good. The platform is called Peoplefund.it and is developed by Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall's production company Keo Films. The site hopes to generate money, resources and equipment for projects like community energy, organic food and building environmentally friendly projects like bicycle manufacturing.

What we're trying to learn is how to optimise the potential for more of this to happen and what things work well (and not so well). Once up and running, the source code for Peoplefund.it will be made available as open-source software so that others might be encouraged to try crowd-funding for themselves. Eventually, we hope that crowd-funding may provide a tried and tested solution to get larger numbers of people together to make change happen for public good.

If you have a project you'd like to put on peoplefund.it, there's a simple rule of thumb - you need a good idea that might just change the world (for the better of course)...