Crowdfunding, which came about as a way of raising finance to help develop inspired ideas, is, in itself, an inspired idea. Which makes you wonder how the people who started sites like Pozible, one of the go-to sites for this activity, raised money for it in the first place, there being no crowdfunding site to help them. But I digress.

The idea that if enough people want to help, a clever project can be given wings has a certain appeal, and since hearing about it a few years ago, it’s been on my ‘wouldn’t that be an interesting thing to do?’ list. But being of a cautious nature, I’d held back. Not any more. Once I was persuaded to:

#36 Crowdfund a Great Cause

there’s been no stopping me.

The first opportunity came along last year when Choice asked its subscribers to help fund a submission to the Government on the labelling of free-range eggs.

As my own chickens live a life like this:

…that’s hand diced cucumber and tomato treats

supporting other chickens seemed the least I could do, so they didn’t have a completely miserable time of it.

When you make a pledge to help crowdfund a project, you can choose your level of financial support. One hundred people each pledging just $5 can go a long way. Even better, your money is only taken if the project succeeds in reaching it’s goal in a specified time frame. This helps weed out the dodgy requests or those that fail to persuade enough donors.

There’s often a small reward on offer, too. It ranges from the undying gratitude of the person/s you’re helping plus the karma that comes from performing a good deed through to more tangible rewards.

When the Choice crowd funding succeeded and my money was taken, this adorable t-shirt arrived in the mail several weeks later:

I do give a Cluck!

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Then a friend mentioned that her daughter, who sings in an A-capella group called Co-Cheòl, was looking to crowd fund their debut album.

I’ve heard this group sing and they’re seriously good. You can listen to them here or here. They have a number of awards to back it up, so supporting them was a no brainer.

Their rewards to donors are pretty good too, like being allowed to download the album, should they reach their goal and produce it. As my downloading skills are still in their infancy,  I opted to receive a real, hard copy of their album by offering a bit more support.

Then I began to think that it’d be fun to look for a project that had almost reached its target but was about to run out of time.  Such a disappointment for them, I thought. So you could then sweep in and donate what was needed to make it a success in its dying moments. Imagine how thrilled they’d be. I haven’t found the perfect one to do this for, but given time – and not too much of  a shortfall – it may happen.

Some projects, though are quite unusual.

I’m impressed he’s managed to make it to $13 already. Perhaps the two donors think it’s worth it for the laugh.