Library Guides
Subject: Economy and BusinessCrowdfunding
Crowdfunding, also known as micropatronage, is an alternative to bank loans, to collectively fund a project, service, product, etc. Based on the use of Internet, we can find numerous online participatory funding platforms that allow individuals to support and fund different initiatives through donations, patronage, loans or investments.
- What is crowdfunding?
- Organizations promoting crowdfunding
- Studies and reports on crowdfunding
- Crowdfunding, crowdsourcing and fundraising, differences
- Types of crowdfunding
- Crowdfunding and law - legislation of reference
- Crowdfunding and politics
- Crowdfunding and economics
- Crowdfunding, arts and humanities
- Crowdfunding, psychology and education
- Crowdfunding, science and academic research
- Critical trends and curiosities
- Get up to date with crowdfunding
What is crowdfunding?
Some tools to define and understand crowdfunding and its increased popularity internationally.
Crowdfunding on Wikipedia. Contains the definition, history, different types and other information of interest, as well as links on the subject.
Guide to crowdfunding, provided by the European Commission. Offers information on the nature, types and uses of crowdfunding and how to access it.
Digital medium with information on crowdsourcing and crowdfunding. Activists' crowdfunding website, to keep up to date.
Informative website on crowdfunding and its philosophy.
Special publication on crowdfunding in New Media & Society.
Report on crowdfunding from the TV programme Parlamento, on Canal 24h.
Broadcast of the radio programme El racó de pensar on crowdfunding. Section in El Cafè de la República, on Catalunya Ràdio.
Representation of the data of one of the best known crowdfunding platforms in Spain, Verkami. Interactive and dynamic tool to understand how cultural crowdfunding works in Spain.
Organizations promoting crowdfunding
Organizations that promote and support crowdfunding.
Association that aims to promote crowdfunding, acting as the voice of numerous crowdfunding platforms in Spain.
International not-for-profit organization that supports initiatives to innovate, promote and protect crowdfunding in Europe.
Studies and reports on crowdfunding
Different organizations worldwide have presented studies and reports to theorize about crowdfunding and its evolution.
World Bank report on the potential of crowdfunding as a new form of funding. Description of the new crowdfunding strategies, the risks and how to prevent them.
Consultative document on crowdfunding, issued by the European Commission, to define the bases of this new form of funding.
Crowdfunding, crowdsourcing and fundraising, differences
There is general confusion, caused by the similarity of denominations, between crowdfunding, crowdsourcing and fundraising. Each of these terms involves different tasks, with different ends. Next, we explain crowdsourcing and fundraising, in order to distinguish them from crowdfunding.
What is crowdsourcing?
Crowdfunding is a type of crowdsourcing. Below you will find more information on crowdsourcing, in order to understand how it differs from crowdfunding. We can first define it as a system of collaboration and outsourcing of tasks to achieve results, products, services, etc.
Crowdsourcing on Wikipedia. Contains the definitions, theoretical perspectives, examples and other information of interest, as well as links on the subject.
Article published in the Journal of Information Science. Analyses diverse definitions of crowdsourcing, to extract common elements that define the basic characteristics of a crowdsourcing initiative.
Article published in the Journal of Planning Literature. Deals with the differences between crowdsourcing and citizen participation.
Change.org is considered a platform for social change, with a catalogue of ideas used by crowdsourcing.
What is fundraising?
The idea of crowdfunding comes from fundraising, but is reformulated. While fundraising means obtaining funds for charitable ends and for not-for-profit organizations, crowdfunding is obtaining funds for projects.
Fundraising on Wikipedia. Contains a definition, organizations working on it, types of fundraising and other information of interest, as well as links on the subject.
Reflections published in "Universo Crowdfunding" on fundraising and its differences from crowdfunding.
Not-for-profit organization that promotes fundraising through philanthropy and obtaining funds, in Spain, for social causes.
Organization embracing different national associations (including the Spanish Fundraising Association), with the aim of promoting collaborative work between the different national associations in order to promote fundraising.
Types of crowdfunding
Crowdfunding is an overall form of collective funding. But we can differentiate four types as the most common and outstanding: equity crowdfunding, reward crowdfunding, crowdlending and donation-based crowdfunding. Next, we present these four types conceptually, provide lists of the most representative and specify examples of multidisciplinary platforms based on each of these types.
Information on the four main types of crowdfunding, from the popular website "Universo Crowdfunding".
Publication on "Societat de la Innovació" on the four most common types of crowdfunding and some examples of each one.
Main crowdfunding platforms
Internet facilitates the rapid proliferation of crowdfunding platforms, and it is important to be able to revise diverse crowdfunding platforms before creating a project or investing in it, in order to select the most appropriate one for each case.
List of crowdfunding platforms in Spain, continuously updated, provided by "Universo Crowdfunding". Classifies the platforms according to their contents.
List of crowdfunding platforms in Latin America, distinguished according to type of micropatronage.
Guide to crowdfunding platforms, by Latin American country.
Equity crowdfunding
Investment Crowdfunding brings together natural or legal persons, the so-called investors, with natural and legal persons asking for funding for their project. These investors finally form part of the body of shareholders of the project and can even receive profits.
Collective investment platform, which puts entrepreneurs in touch with investors.
Online investment platform, a benchmark at European level.
Website for funding start-ups.
Reward crowdfunding
With reward crowdfunding, the patron, the project funder, receives compensation in exchange for a financial contribution.
Crowdfunding platform for creative projects.
Reward funding platform.
It defines itself as a distributed collective and collaborative funding platform.
Exclusively collective Catalan reward funding platform of social and cultural projects.
Funding platform of creative, innovative and social projects.
Creative project funding platform with reward crowdfunding.
International reward-based micropatronage website.
Leading multidisciplinary reward crowdfunding platform in Latin America, present in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay and the United States.
Crowdlending
Also known as debt crowdfunding. The economic contributions to the project are returned to the investor at a given interest rate. It is important to differentiate between P2B (peer-to-business or loans between individuals and businesses) and P2P (peer-to-peer or loans between individuals).
Crowdlending platform only between people.
Crowdlending platform between individuals, with the particularity of ratification of contracts before a lawyer.
Donation crowdfunding
With donation-based crowdfunding, the people who provide funding receive nothing in exchange.
Not-for-profit organization that promotes funding through donation to small companies and entrepreneurs in developing countries.
Donation-based crowdfunding platform to receive funds for charitable campaigns.
Crowdfunding and law - legislation of reference
With the rise of crowdfunding and the number of platforms dedicated to this form of funding, governments everywhere have had to legislate these new forms of funding, establishing an appropriate regulatory framework for crowdfunding.
For the first time in Spain the legal system of the Participatory Funding Platforms is regulated. An act that regulates new forms of access to credit based on crowdfunding, specifically through platforms that use equity crowdfunding and crowdlending, platforms with a funding component. One of the main innovations is that the Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMC, Spanish National Securities Markets Commission) becomes responsible for the supervision, inspection and, if necessary, sanctioning of the projects that use this type of funding. Reward crowdfunding and donation-based crowdfunding are excluded.
Apart from the Law on Business Funding Promotion, Law 2/2009 is applied to participatory funding platforms for anything not regulated by Law 5/2015 for promoters (those who request funding) who have the status of consumers.
Complementary act to the Law on Business Funding Promotion, where the participatory funding platform will be considered an intermediary for the purposes of Law 16/2011.
Report reviewing the regulation of crowdfunding in 30 countries in Europe, the United States, Canada and Brazil.
Law of President Barack Obama passed by the United States Congress, April 2012, which regulates funding to support entrepreneurship and small enterprises, allowing funding through individuals. It is one of the first legislative initiatives to promote crowdfunding.
Crowdfunding and politics
Crowdfunding has also reached the world of politics, as an alternative to funding based on bank loans. Different notable politicians, such as Barack Obama and Pablo Iglesias, use this participatory funding for their political initiatives.
Publication on "Universo Crowdfunding" on the effect of crowdfunding on politics, using the example of Podemos, in addition to other references.
Reflection on the use of crowdfunding by Barack Obama on "Universo Crowdfunding".
Website of the political party Podemos where donation-based crowdfunding is promoted, to support the party's various initiatives.
Crowdfunding and economics
Equity crowdfunding and crowdlending are the two most common types of crowdfunding in terms of crowdfunding linked to economics and business.
Article by the Journal of Business Venturing which examines crowdfunding and how it has become an essential tool for entrepreneurs seeking to secure funding for their projects.
Equity crowdfunding portal for start-ups, business and services funding.
Website for funding financial innovation projects through crowdfunding.
Platform based on equity crowdfunding for company funding.
Crowdfunding, arts and humanities
Crowdfunding also impacts the arts and humanities.
Representation of the data of one of the best known crowdfunding platforms in Spain, Verkami. Interactive and dynamic tool to understand how cultural crowdfunding works in Spain.
Cultural sponsorship
Patronage has always played an important role in culture. Crowdfunding has popularized the search for funding and has become widespread around the world.
It funds projects for the conservation and improvement of the country's historic and cultural heritage.
Publishing crowdfunding
Crowdfunding publishing platforms help and support new writers. Self-publishing is not always done by searching for funding. Despite this, both are good options for publishing a book.
A new way of publishing books. If you are a writer and want to get published, this platform offers sponsorship to support your work. The profits are always shared between the author and the sponsors.
If you have a book and want to publish it, this platform can help you thanks to the collaboration between sponsors and publishing industry professionals. The author decides the recompense to offer the sponsors of his work.
Crowdfunding and self-publishing platform for books by authors from the Canary Islands.
Crowdfunding, psychology and education
Crowdfunding also impacts the psychology and education.
Crowdfunding and education
There are dozens of platforms for funding education and teaching around the world. There are also platforms aimed at teachers searching for specific funding to carry out education or research projects.
Platform for funding teaching for students from developed countries.
Note posted in the InformED blog on education and technology topics that provides a list of the different ways in which crowdfunding can be applied to education.
This platform enables university students, alumni and lecturers to secure funding for their projects and start-ups. A way of teaching students skills to be innovative.
Crowdfunding and psychology
Crowdfunding and funding platforms enable scientific studies applied to psychology to be carried out.
Article published in the The Economist in 2012 which describes how crowdsourcing is opening up very powerful new lines of research in psychology.
Crowdsourcing applied to psychology. This article describes how a mobile app, such as a simple game can gather cognitive data about users to study psychological aspects.
This article examines the use of crowdfunding platforms in medicine and health research.
Crowdfunding, science and academic research
Parallel to public funding, various scientific and technological projects call for public collaboration through crowdfunding.
Publication on the rate of crowdfunding in scientific project financing.
Financing platform for Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) courses.
Interuniversity crowdfunding for scientific research projects.
Crowdfunding platform for scientific research initiatives and conservation projects.
Portal specializing in fostering collective financing for science, managed by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT).
Financing and collective participation platform for science and research.
Critical trends and curiosities
Crowdfunding is trending, which does not mean that it does not have its weaknesses or its critics, who are less optimistic with regard to the reliability of the system when it comes to funding certain types of project. The following are a few more critical views of crowdfunding and some peculiar projects that have taken the world by surprise, either because of the amount collected or because of the fact that they have turned out to be a scam.
In July 2014, a user identifying himself as Zack Danger Brown posted a particularly odd crowdfunding project on Kickstarter: he asked for 10 dollars to make a potato salad. Far from being a simple anecdote, the project earned a final sum of 55,492 dollars, which ended up being used for a music festival, with the commitment to donate any profit to charity. Also, the 6,911 sponsors of the crowdfunding project expected to receive various rewards (eg an exclusive T-shirt or the names of all the participants mentioned in a video).
Article published in ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction about motivations and less clear points of crowdfunding.
Video on the advantages, drawbacks, risks and opportunities of crowdfunding, published in El Mundo TV.
Review of some of the crowdfunding campaigns that have turned out to be a scam.
Get up to date with crowdfunding
Crowdfunding is also present in the media with news updates on the subject, for its dissemination or analysis, and in specialist magazines.
Section given over to news on crowdfunding published in The Guardian newspaper.
News from the crowdfunding section of the El País newspaper.
Section in Wired newspaper on crowdfunding. Wired is a newspaper that analyses the ways in which technology affects culture, education, the economy and politics in today's world.
Blog or online magazine on crowdfunding. News and tips on how to launch a crowdfunding campaign.
