James Sweetman Guardian Professional, Thursday 5 June 2014 08.58 BST Ambitious crowdfunders need to stack the cards in their favour, and there are five ways to enhance your chances of success. Photograph: Pegaz/Alamy 1. The right platform There are five types of crowdfund: equity, donation, reward, debt/peer-to-peer lending, and...
Continue ReadingBy: Bruce Davis The deficit is social and political and neo-liberal economics are to blame Global wealth is being captured by and increasingly disconnected elite and creating a vacuum ripe for the rhetoric of UKIP and other extreme parties Neo-liberal economics create the perfect situation for the rise...
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Julia Groves, chair of the UK Crowdfunding Association offers three pieces of advice needed in order for trust to be regained in the financial sector. Post credit crisis, the financial services industry is often seen as little more than a necessary evil for many people: something...
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In the Guardian, hubbub founder Jonathan May discusses a step by step approach to funding a social enterprise, with and without money. In his article he points out three common misconceptions about funding a social enterprise, and how you can tackle them by being savvy,...
Continue ReadingA new funding stream could fill the gap left by the major banks who are refusing to lend to community energy firms continue reading...
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3m people backed projects on the website, with 19.9k of them successfully hitting their targets. Crowdfunding website Kickstarter says visitors pledged $480m to projects in 2013, up from $319.8m the previous year. The stats were released as part of its end-of-year report, which also revealed that 3m people...
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Last year, $244bn (£149bn) poured into global renewable investments. But only a tiny amount of that trickled down to where it is needed the most – to provide power to the two billion people without access to energy. The UN's goal of universal access to...
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In its infancy, science was sponsored by rich benefactors who favoured areas of their own liking. Today, despite being more equitably financed by public intervention, science seems to evolve in parallel to, rather than in sync with, society. In the future, should citizens have a...
Continue ReadingAs the farm behind the Archers tries to raise £1m, Mike Scott asks whether crowdfunding will continue its exponential rise or be held back by regulators. When it comes to investing, people are increasingly cutting out the middleman and going straight to the horse's mouth. One business...
Continue ReadingThis backpack-sized 3D printer has already smashed its $1,500 target on Indiegogo – so can we really expect it to take off? The LumiFold photopolymerisation 3D printer is small, affordable and on Indiegogo. Photograph: Indiegogo Most desktop 3D printers aren't small or portable, but a new LumiFold claims...
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