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As crowdfunding has matured from a series of one-off efforts into something reproducible, the money has followed.

Venture capitalists have also shown an interest by investing in start-ups that facilitate crowdfunding.

Of those that are accepted, about half meet their funding goals: around 1,600 projects had been funded by July 2010.

Seeded by the Grameen Bank, industry trailblazers like Kiva and Prosper applied the concept of microlending to the Internet, spawning people-to-people lending. The newest breed of microfinance — crowdfunding — is fast growing in popularity.

While the phenomenon is not new, it is still not a mainstream concept and therein lies it beauty.

Three things to consider for taking your project to the crowdfunding street:

you have to be able to complete the whatever-it-is because the nature of crowdfunding demands completion.

Kickstarter notes that it took 16 months to reach the first 200,000backers, while the last 200,000 signed on in only three months. Funding projects ishabitual, according to Kickstarter’s figures. Out of 1,013,725 total backers,166,823 have funded two or more projects, 66,676 have backed three or more, and23,601 have backed five or more.

Kickstarter revealed some usefulinsights on what types of projects get the most traction on their creative-orientedplatform. Music, film and video are the clear frontrunners

With such growth, critiques are inevitable. Perhaps most common is the fearthat we’re in a crowdfunding “bubble”.

The convening power of the Internet, rapid advances in technology, and the reduced costs of launching a social enterprise in today's wired world are driving the race to create business models brimming with purpose. In this environment, social entrepreneurs like these are developing new solutions to take advantage of these advances and recreate yesterday's broken business models.

One example of their approach is crowdfunding -- the collective cooperation by people who network and pool their money together. And the implications, from technology to community-powered renewable energy to political campaigns or to financing the next wave of social enterprises, are immense. Think about how the Obama campaign flipped the standard campaign fundraising model on its head through harnessing small repeatable donations from the crowd.

It's an opportunity that has the potential to transform the business, political, and charitable landscapes. And it's already happening.  In this discussion, we ask for your insights on this current trend.  Some questions to consider:   1. What business model for social impact does your organization use?
 2. Does an opportunity exist for crowdfunding to scale your impact?   3. Besides the examples noted above, can you think of other possibilities to harness crowdfunding for good?     4. What isn't sustainable about your business model? Why? Could "tapping the crowd" for funds enhance your sustainability?

Crowdfunding Sources The sites listed below enable entrepreneurs, non-profits, and their supporters to solicit funds from individuals ("the crowd") via the internet.

General crowdfunding platorms AppBackr – Crowdfunding for mobile applications. Chip-in - a widget that can be posted on blogs, websites, and many social media profiles and that allows individuals, private groups, non-profits, and others to raise money online. Indiegogo - An online platform used for funding a range of campaigns. KickStarter - A crowdfunding platform for a broad spectrum of projects. Peerbackers - Enables entrepreneurs and non-profits to raise funding for their idea from friends, family, and peers. Rockethub - A funding platform and community for independent artists and entrepreneurs.

Green/social entrepreneur/non-profit platorms 33needs – A crowdfunding organization that connects micro-investors with social entrepreneurs who have ideas in categories such as sustainable food, health, education, and the environment. Ashoka Invest in Innovation - Funding platform to support Ashoka's network of social entrepreneurs. Causes - Provides an online fundraising platform (including leveraging Facebook) for nonprofits and other causes. CauseVox – Enables nonprofits and other causes to create online fundraising campaigns. FirstGiving - Enables non-profit supporters to create their own fundraising page to raise money for the cause of their choice. Give.fm (beta) – a micro-funding organization that helps nonprofits and individuals to set up a campaign to raise money for causes. Green Unite - A crowdfunding platform for sustainable products and clean technology. Greenfunder – A crowd funding platform for green, sustainable, and related projects. Razoo – A crowdfunding platform for non-profits and charities that allows individuals, organizations, corporations, and foundations to set up a fundraising page to raise money for their own cause or their other cause of choice.  Start Some Good – Connects social entrepreneurs with crowd funded venture capital.

With credit still tight and venture capital out of reach for many small firms, "crowdfunding" sites such as Crowdcube offer an attractive alternative.

By raising small sums from many individuals, businesses can access the capital they need to grow and thrive, often more quickly and on better terms than with conventional sources.

Crowdcube, founded in 2010 in Exeter, calls its crowdfunding model "the next generation of business investment."

our team is actively pursuing approaches to funding political and social change efforts by leveraging the power of crowds. We realize that much higher levels of engagement and cooperation are needed if we want any hope of restoring democracy to our currently corporate-controlled system. I wrote about this in How We’ll Fund The Progressive Movement and it is the primary motivation behind our current crowdfunding project to create A Crowdfunding Manual for Social Change.

The new paradigm must be based on principles of open collaboration, transparency, and empowerment. I have been inspired by the power of collaborative consumption for shifting social norms, conceptual frames,

seeking to build a new community of practice where we can all learn together

One of the most impressive qualities of crowdfunding is its versatility. Feature films, music releases, web startups, gadgets, art projects, urban farms, journalism, open-source platforms, and social activism comprise only a short list of the types of projects that have been funded by crowdfunding. And as we’ve explored during this week’s Crowdfunding Nation series, it's only expanding.

The Obama campaign, through harnessing small contributions from millions of supporters, fueled a funding phenomenon already taking hold in the art and music worlds. Social entrepreneurs (i.e. entrepreneurs solving social and environmental problems through business practices) are taking notice.

Thousands of social entrepreneurs are in need of a disruptive financial innovation: a way to connect with the with the vast pool of capital in the hands of our friends, our family, and the growing number of people who believe social entrepreneurship allows for a deeper, more sustained impact than traditional models.

What makes Kiva “social” are some of the typical features you would have in a social network, like pictures, profile, updates; but more than that, it’s that sense of personalisation that originates from knowing what you’re doing with the money you’re giving.

One of the first peer-to-peer lending site to launch was Zopa, a London-based company providing an online money exchange service. Zopa operates within the UK, Italy and a service is being developed for Japan.

 In 2006, Prosper was launched in the US, following the same model.  In 2007, LendingClub launched the second peer-to-peer lending site

Crowdsourcing has moved to the money arena, tapping the power of larger audiences to provide funding options for startups and established businesses. A host of websites dedicated to crowdfunding are popping up, matching small businesses, soloists and artists with people willing to invest in projects they find worthy of support.

Finding funding can be one of the biggest challenges for social entrepreneurs.

Family and friends have been one of the most common sources of venture funding capital for centuries. Crowdfunding takes this age-old source of venture funding and brings it into the digital age.

33 Needs: Connecting microinvestors & social enterpreneurs 133needs

An interesting new development on this type of funding is its expansion in the area of crowdfunding entrepreneurial businesses.

Two UK companies are however pioneering the provision of finance through lending and equity investing from the crowd. Fundingcircle, founded in 2010 allows the general public to directly lend to businesses seeking finance, allowing them to quickly access capital without having to go through the banking system. So far several thousand lenders have provided loans worth some £24 million. Crowdcube, also launched in 2010, allows individuals to take an equity stake in a company raising finance.

Crowdfunding supporters argue that while raising money is the most important benefit the platform provides, another important advantage of this new source of finance is the power of "collective intelligence" i.e. the ability to mobilise the wisdom of crowd by asking investors to actively participate in new product development (e.g. by voting on their preferred product or services) and actively contribute to the due diligence of the opportunity by sharing their expertise.

The tool they use is called niche crowd-funding. Entrepreneurs set up websites for very specific types of charitable projects, like supporting small farmers in developing nations or helping victims of natural disasters. People who need backers can put fund-raising pitches on the site—and the entrepreneurs take a cut of whatever money they raise.

The owners of the niche sites are betting that people want smaller, more focused venues where they don't have to compete for attention with thousands of unrelated projects.

. FitFunder.com, which is based in Thousand Oaks, Calif., lets users connect their fitness goals with charitable causes. People who want to run a marathon for charity, for instance, can use the site to link up with a cause in need—and then solicit donations. The site charges 5% of funds raised.

Crowdfunding is a hot topic of late, in part because the JOBS Act promises to bring significant changes to the way it works.

or starters, small businesses that want to move forward with crowdfunding can begin to gather all the important documents needed to launch a campaign. Documents will include the financial status of the company, financial statements certified by an officer or accountant (depending on the amount of the offering), the company’s tax return for the most recent year, a business plan, and a capital structure explaining who owns what percentage of the company.

typically the amounts that you’ll be looking at will not represent a big ownership stake

But away from the crumbling of traditional structures that have for decades supported musicians, film-makers et al, there's been a feelgood story brewing online that suggests that our enthusiasm for giving money in exchange for creativity has far from disappeared. Crowdfunding is a modern spin on the ancient system of patronage, and the polar opposite of file-sharing

Slicethepie and Sellaband were pioneers that aimed to launch the careers of young musicians, and they've since been joined by start-ups such as PledgeMusic and My Major Company (MMC). Meanwhile, sites such as Feed the Muse and RocketHub have broadened it beyond music to any kind of creative project. But the biggest noise is being made by Kickstarter.

behind these headline-grabbing figures are a huge number of smaller projects that are seeing the light of day thanks only to crowdfunding

Perhaps the most striking feature of "crowdfunding" is the broad geographic dispersion of investors in small, early-stage projects. This contrasts with existing theories that predict entrepreneurs and investors will be co-located due to distance-sensitive costs. We examine a crowdfunding setting that connects artist-entrepreneurs with investors over the internet for financing musical projects. The average distance between artists and investors is about 3,000 miles, suggesting a reduced role for spatial proximity. Still, distance does play a role. Within a single round of financing, local investors invest relatively early, and they appear less responsive to decisions by other investors. We show this geography effect is driven by investors who likely have a personal connection with the artist-entrepreneur ("family and friends"). Although the online platform seems to eliminate most distance-related economic frictions such as monitoring progress, providing input, and gathering information, it does not eliminate social-related frictions.

Crowdfunding is a community-engagement process between an individual or organization seeking money to create something new and a crowd of supporters who want to participate in the effort in a meaningful way. It is primarily about open collaboration among the participants that takes the form of: An Invitation to Make A Successful Project; followed by A Campaign to Engage More People in the Effort; and culminating in A Celebration of What Everyone Has Created Together.

The tools of social media enable the organic formation of peer-to-peer networks able to set agendas and aggregate resources to move toward their shared goals. Crowdfunding itself is a “sticky” idea with mass appeal because it is proving to be an effective way to democratize finance by making the exchange of money more transparent as a way to empower social action. What started out as a cool way to support your local band in getting their first recording out to their fans has evolved into a recognizable platform for bypassing bureaucratic institutions and taking action straight to the crowd.