Civic crowdfunding

Civic crowdfunding refers to the cooperative effort of individuals in fundraising and philanthropy for community projects. In modern times, such efforts typically communicating with one another on the Internet. Civic crowdfunding can also include the use of crowd funding to develop public assets, and/or the investment of public funds.

Examples of civic crowdfunding

The Statue of Liberty project was a civic crowdfunding campaign by newspaper owner Joseph Pulitzer. In 1884, with the finished monument due to be shipped from France, the American Committee had raised only half of the $300,000 it needed to pay for the pedestal on which the statue would stand. (The French funded the statue itself.) Fundraising for the project was controversial: Grover Cleveland, then governor of New York, vetoed a plan for the city to invest in the statue, while Congressional Democrats voted against federal funding. With the statue’s completion seemingly in jeopardy, Pulitzer launched a call for public donations through his newspaper The World. The campaign raised $100,000 in five months from 120,000 donations.

In February 2013, Chicago launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise $480,000 for a city-backed basketball program for at-risk youth, the Windy City Hoops, using the Indiegogo platform. The campaign was backed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and is sponsored by Chicago Parks Foundation, the philanthropic partner of the Chicago Park District.

The New York City Council has a Kickstarter page featuring civic-related projects in the city.

In the United Kingdom, a campaign by the community of Glyn Coch, South Wales, used the platform Spacehive to raise the final $55,000 needed to complete a $1.2 million community center project. Backers of the project included the comedian Stephen Fry and the supermarket chain Tesco.

Related platforms

David Lepeska wrote about the broader field of digital platforms to improve public space in an article called "When We're All Urban Planners" in Next American City. The article listed not just funding platforms, but also citizen tools like "See, Click, Fix" to report problems like potholes to government agencies. ioby is another type of civic crowdfunding platform that also allows people to volunteer with projects in addition to donating to them.

See also

Examples

• Brickstarter
• Citizinvestor
• DonorsChoose
• Neighbor.ly

Other articles

• Dollar voting
• Ethical consumerism

References

• Maly, Tim - Yes, in My Backyard! Meet Brickstarter, the Kickstarter of Neighborhood Projects. Wired. 2 Aug 2012
• Sebag-Montefiore, Clarissa - In Britain, Spacehive helps the people get civic projects done Los Angeles Times. 2013
• Grossman, Lisa - Crowdfund your area's projects one brick at a time New Scientist. 30 November 2012
• McGuirk, Justin - Brickstarter: crowd-funding takes to the streets The Guardian. 24 Aug 2012
• Murray, Kate - In for a penny: crowdsourced funding saves community projects The Guardian. 8 Jun 2012
• Davies, Rodrigo - Crowdfunding is a windfall for participation first, budgets second 17 Jan 2012
• Grill, Jason - Crowdfunding Civic Infrastructure? The Next Big Thing. The Huffington Post. 9 July 2012
• McLaughlin, Brendan - Crowd funding website finds a way to improve neighborhoods when the city has no money abc Action News. 13 Sept 2012
• Hawkins, Kathryn - Neighbor.ly Helps Communities Build Better Towns The Atlantic. 6 Nov 2012
• Morisy, Michael - Crowdfunding sites target civic projects. The Boston Globe. 12 Nov 2012
• Chieppo, Charles - Crowdfunding: a New Way to Get Things Done in Government Governing. 6 Sept 2012
• Lange, Alexandra - Against Kickstarter Urbanism DesignObserver. 2 May 2012
• Zuckerman, Ethan - How do we make civic crowdfunding awesome? 10 Aug 2012
• Neubauer, Miranda - Three Kickstarter-Inspired, Civically Minded Crowdfunding Sites TechPresident. 31 July 2012
• Drell, Lauren - Crowdfunding Startups Let You Be Your City’s Urban Planner Mashable. 10 Oct 2012
• Gourlay, Chris - A model way to pay Public Service UK. 11 July 2012
• Duer, Caitlyn - Kickstarter Can't Solve Public Problems. PolicyShop. 10 Feb 2012
• Tiernan, Timothy - Crowdfunding in the Public Sector. eCivis. 13 Sep 2012