How many of us will end up “Crowdfunding” the system?

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Reason I ask, it is becoming more and more common for people to raise money directly for educational events or for new equipment for hospitals, donations would normally be associated with charities and research but these days we chose to step in and help out others.

You are ultimately backing a good cause of course and I have no problem with that whatsoever.

A few years back I decided to donate a small amount of money a month to some charities, I try to spread that amount of money across a few charities and change them from time to time so everyone gets a small donation. I’m no saint and I am not trying to make myself feel better, it’s just a good thing to do, in my opinion. These charities do great work for many different reasons, funded by most of us and a little help from elsewhere.

The problem is when I was asked to donate to raise some money towards new hospital equipment it occurred to me that this isn’t a charity, this is a hospital which I’m already funding through my taxes, or am I? Of course I didn’t object and donated to this very good cause and pleased to say my friends and their children raised just over £1000!

If we the population, the “Crowd” are stepping in and helping out with the local services, are we letting the Government off the hook? We hope we have helped additionally to what the Government were going to give and not instead of.

But should we feel the need to step in, because the help is to slow to come? Are we just helping out? How many of us will additionally “Crowdfund” the system?

Mamma Mia! Crowdfunding takes centre stage

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Having recently discussed the positive impact of Crowdfunding on science, sport and healthcare the latest thing to catch the eye is the soaring popularity of Crowdfunding in theatre. With an estimated 14million people flocking to London’s West End every year to view a plethora of theatrical performances, it comes as no surprise to see people so keen to invest.

Ambitious productions have led to sky high ticket prices and consequentially half full audiences causing the curtain to fall on popular and successful West End shows. Production costs can be as high as £8million for Musicals so traditional investment has lent its hand to wealthy groups or angel investors, so it only seems natural for Crowdfunding to enter stage right.

The Crowdfunding Centre have released figures from Q1 2014 that show Crowdfunding campaigns in the UK have raised over £250,000 for theatre projects, with the number of individual backers rising 700% in 3 months. Whilst the total amount raised is clearly a long way short of total production costs the crowd are clearly excited about being part of a show.

Currently online donations are being rewarded on a philanthropic basis with investors receiving signed programs or press night tickets however one producer from the West End has stated the potential for it to move from a donation based model of Crowdfunding to an Equity based model, with investors receiving similar financial terms as their offline counterparts – if the show makes a profit.

The show must go on!