Crowd funding, crowd financing, crowd sourced capital, or street performer protocol, describes the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money and other resources together, usually via the internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations.
A few months ago I informally applied for an associate role at ABN AMRO's Crowd Funding desk. ABN AMRO is the first bank to recognize this somewhat unknown concept of raising funds as a new way to start up businesses. Most people get the idea when they are told that disaster relief uses this way of financing since ever. Crowd funding occurs for any other variety of purposes, from abovementioned disaster relief to citizen journalism to artists seeking support from fans, to political campaigns, to funding a startup company or small business or creating free software.
Because banks are rather hesitant these days, especially when they're going over business plans of lesser known concepts, to be-entrepreneurs seek alternative ways of funding their start ups. Microfinance, venture capital, a wealthy uncle, etc. There are of course pros and cons to every form of finance. So too with trying to get your business up and running with crowd funding. How can you get your message across to your potential 'crowd'? Will you have enough time to get that message across? Enough info to go on for hours. For now, read up:
ABN AMRO's initiative (via Dialogues Incubator): Seeds
Simply briliant: Kickstarter
For the Dutchies: crowdfunding.nl
