Crowd funding describes the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money together, usually via the Internet, in order to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations. Crowd funding occurs for any variety of purposes, from disaster relief to citizen journalism to artists seeking support from fans, to political campaigns and now in Venture Capitals for raising funds.
The crowd funding approach has long precedents in the sphere of charity. It is receiving renewed attention from both commercial and social entrepreneurs now that social media, online communities and micropayment technology make it straightforward to engage and secure donations from a group of potentially interested supporters at very low cost.
An entrepreneur seeking to use crowd funding typically makes use of online communities to solicit pledges of small amounts of money from individuals who are typically not professional financiers.
