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Remember
the times when you have these creative ideas and projects that you have always
wanted to do? Yet you simply dismissed them after realising that you are in
massive education debt, not to mention that you are a student, barely surviving
through the incomes that you have earned from numerous part time jobs.
Now,
with the help of crowdfunding sites, you can strike off financial worry from
your list. There are numerous websites that deal with different areas of
crowdfunding. As the name suggests, crowdfunding is by definition, “the practice of funding a project or venture by
raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically
via the Internet”.
“People don't buy what you do; they buy
why you do it.” - Simon Sinek.
You can be one of those who are overwhelmed by the number of sites out
there, and you are not sure which site is the right one for you. Ultimately, it
boils down to the objectives of your projects.
Basically there are two types of crowdfunding sites, the donation-based
and investment-based. The former accepts donations from crowds and in return
they will be given rewards or discounts depending on their level of
contributions. Meanwhile, the latter accepts funding in exchange for profits
and shares and the contributors are treated as investors.
Here are the top 6 crowdfunding sites that you can ponder over as the
suitable one for you.
1. KickStarter
As one of the first pioneers in the crowdfunding site, Kickstarter has
become well known in its field and it is a donation-based funding site that
allows you to raise funds for your creative projects. The site will charge 5%
of the funds raised and it uses an all-or-nothing model where the funds will be
lost if the target is not achieved within a time frame, in addition 3-5%
transaction fees. The only limitation is that it does not support personal
fundraising and only allows projects based in the UK and US.
2. Indiegogo
Being one of the top competitors of KickStarter, Indiegogo is a flexible
site where it is open for campaigns worldwide. Unlike KickStarter, it also
offers personal fundraising for the users. With an all-or-nothing model, it
charges 9% of the funds and refunds 5% if you reach your goal, with an
additional 3% processing fee and $25 fee for international line. The good thing
about Indiegogo is that there is no application process and it is available
globally. However, it can be slightly more expensive if you do not reach your
goal.
3. RocketHub
RocketHub offers a unique
type of donation-based crowdfunding site through a recent partnership with
A&E Project Start Up to get selected projects featured both online in ‘The
Idea Book for Educators’, an A&E magazine! The site charged a 4% for
completed campaign and 8% for partially-completed campaign, excluding 4%
processing fees. Although, it has an user-friendly interface, RocketHub has
lesser traffic compared to KickStarter and Indiegogo.
4. Crowdfunder
This site consists of both
donation-based and investment-based funding and it has one of the largest
networks of investors in the investment-based field. It also promotes both
online and offline crowdfunding as well as partnership. Crowdfunder charges 5%
with all-or-nothing plan, with an addition of 1.9-5% Amazon FPS Transection
fee. The benefits of Crowdfunder is that it offers investors the potential to
gain profit from the next successful crowdfunded companies. The disadvantage of
this site is that it is only made available for profit companies.
5. TeeSpring
TeeSpring enables you to design a shirt and pre-sell your
designed shirts to the crowd while the TeeSpring team does all the rest for
you. It is more like a site to promote and sell your products (shirts only)
than a crowdfunding site. The fees charged depends on t-shirts selected for
sale which is usually 10% or higher. The advantage of using this site is that
you can keep all the profits that you gained from the sale.
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