Show Me the Money

So, you may be asking if this crowdfunding phenomenon really exists, or is it just a figment of our aspirational imaginations? Well, we’d like to share with you a few examples of platforms that are cropping up that provide new and more efficient ways for social enterprises to finance their growth without giving equity away. 

 

Ready? Here we go:

 

Buzzbnk is a crowdfunding website that enables social entrepreneurs and social ventures to raise funds and build a crowd of supporters. Buzzbnk encourages ventures to provide their supporters with a range of fun and exciting benefits. Returns are in the form of goods or services, revenue participation, and possibly even the return of their money once the venture has achieved success. 

 

StartSomeGood focuses on social enterprises and organizations, as opposed to other "social good fund-raising" sites where people raise money for things like running a marathon for charity. They have created a hybrid crowdfunding model where social entrepreneurs select a “tipping point” — the amount of money that is necessary to start doing good, and fundraising up until this point is done in an all-or-nothing way. Supporters pledge funds, but are only charged if and when a venture reaches its funding goal by its deadline.

 

33needs operates in much the same way that Kickstarter does for the creative community, but instead turns the focus entirely on companies with a social mission — allowing ordinary people to invest, make a social impact, and potentially earn a return. From their site: "It’s called impact investing, baby." For example: 20,000 people could invest, not donate, $50 each in More than Me, Inc., one of the social enterprises raising money on 33needs. 

 

CauseVox allows organizations, which include social enterprises, to launch a customized, charity-branded site on their own domain and begin accepting donations. Tools include a simple editor to create fundraising destinations, the ability to create fundraising pages for supporters, socialize fundraising efforts, and more. While non-profits have a 30 day free trial to use the software, CauseVox will charge a small subscription fee and will take 7.5 percent of all donations. They’re pretty new, but CV is already having a significant impact.  

 

In the coming months, we’re going to dig a bit deeper into some of these models to explore their inner workings. Are there specific questions you’d like to ask the founders? Do you have any other examples that we should know about? We’d like to hear from you. 

 

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