crowdfunding

Guest Blogger: Meghan Somers

According to the Merriam Webster dictionary social media is defined as: Forms of electronic communication (such as Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content.

Popular platforms social media include:

§  Facebook: Currently the largest social network on the internet, built on the concept of friend-to-friend connections. 995+ million monthly active users

§  Twitter: Facilitates real-time personal "status updates" through short broadcasts (up to 140 characters) to other subscribers. 500+ million active users

§  LinkedIn: An online networking community for business people. 161+ million active professional users

§  Pinterest: Users organize and share content they find on the web via virtual pinboards. 10+ million monthly active users

§  Google+: Google’s answer to Facebook, users can share content and connect. 250+ million active users.

§  Blogs: A web site on which an individual or group of users record opinions, information, etc. on a regular basis.

Guest Blogger: Meghan Somers

What: Viral Philanthropy, also known as Crowdfunding, is the collective cooperation of people to pool their resources via the internet to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations

Who: Anyone can start a crowdfunding campaign, and anyone can donate to a crowdfunding campaign.

Where: Crowdfunding gives an international platform to local issues. Popular websites for crowdfunding include Indiegogo and Kickstarter.

When: Most often crowdfunding for a particular cause pops up when a certain issue is ‘hot’ or trendy. A recent example is when bus monitor Karen Klein became famous when a video of her being bullied went viral on YouTube, an Indiegogo campaign was started to send her on vacation. The campaign was extremely successful beating its goal of $5000 within five hours and eventually surpassing $700,000 by the time it was finished.

Why: Crowdfunding appeals to the growing need for immediacy in today’s society. By giving people a platform to instantaneously support causes that they are close too people are more likely to ‘impulse’ donate. Both Kickstarter and Indiegogo espouse the idea that anyone should have the opportunity to raise money. They maintain that an online community can support your campaign into success.