Socio-Finance Directory - crowdfunding - $€

Opportunities for your study, research or class project: over 50 funding sites.

Many people have money to invest. Considering the ridiculous and unfairly distributed gains offered by the banks, the staggering profits they record, the astronomical salaries of their executives, their scandals as much financial as ethical, and finally the contradictions in which this pseudo-regulated financial system is mired, one concludes that it is as well to entrust part of one's money directly to projects that one personally values as to trust a system and people who no longer deserve it.

This is the idea of crowdfunding, socio-financing or crowdfunding, now propelled by the Internet and expanding despite regulatory brakes.

The financing of projects by banks includes such constraints and conditions that, even to obtain modest funding, most projects in their early stages cannot meet them, whether they are business creation, social projects, research projects or even study projects. On the side of government programs, if you do not meet the criteria either or do not know how to overcome the administrative maze, the same result awaits you.

There is now an alternative.

Matching supply and demand

Collective funding sites try to mobilize funders around project holders. Their effect on the "professionalization" of projects is immediate: a project must seduce and reach a sensitive value of potential funders. Nowhere is it said that this is easy.

Thankfully, in many cases financial profitability is not the only criterion or even a criterion; for example, contributing to the construction of a library in a village in Mali will not earn you a penny, but perhaps great recognition. Artistic, creative or social projects, the challenge is to seduce first, then to convince and finally to show recognition to the contributors through symbolic or real benefits granted according to the level of participation, success or impact.

The percentage of projects that reach their funding goals varies by site; from 5% for journalism projects to over 40% on KickStarter for more than 50,000 projects, ranging from gadget production to film production or social advocacy.

Education or research project: direct motivation

There are several sites that fund educational projects, ranging from school construction to class trips to scientific research. Some individuals go so far as to apply for a scholarship for themselves or their group...why not? The game is always to seduce, convince and thank in some way.

Even if you don't manage to complete your funding, these sites can be used as motivational levers to move your project forward; they can certainly be integrated into educational activities and school projects as long as those projects are large enough.

In the same spirit, collective solution sites (crowdsourcing) can also be good excuses for student work, especially in graphic design, science, and engineering. If your project is selected, the reward can be very substantial, in the order of several thousand euros or dollars in the most spectacular cases. On average, 100 projects are submitted for one that is finally selected, but you can choose between dozens and sometimes hundreds of applications. It will be more motivating than to comply with the classic academic work, draw a still life or calculate by parallax the height of the church tower.

The value of your network

Many of these crowdfunding sites make various recommendations. In addition to carefully presenting your project, they strongly suggest leveraging your network.

The larger and more active one's network, the better the chances of reaching one's funding goals. One can thus actualize the value of one's network; one thinks of the foundations of educational institutions that can make use of many of these services. People are just waiting to help us, help you, help each other!