I was searching the web for ideas, as usual, and as I am searching the web for crowd funding information, I stumbled on GoFundMe. At first I thought it would be just yet another crowd funding company trying to make a mark in the market. I was wrong.
You see, I am a big fan of Kickstarter. It’s a great crowd funding platform to allow people launch their projects – gadgets, software, books, documentary films, etc. – with the help from thousands of people. I also a supporter of Kiva, a crowd funding platform allowing me to support developing countries’ entrepreneurs to start and/or grow their business.
I take a deeper look at GoFundMe, and I just realized that it’s unique, just like Kickstarter and Kiva are unique in their own ways; it’s not doing the been-there-done-that. In fact, GoFundMe serves an under-served niche in crowd funding arena; to say the least, it is THE crowd funding platform for the rest of us.
Unlike Kickstarter and Kiva, GoFundMe focuses on raising money, collecting donations and accepting gifts for a wide array of causes (dozens of categories to choose from!), typically personal purposes and non-profits. Help paying hospital bills, help launching a music career, help funding a mission, help launching a competition, help funding an education, and many other causes.
Of course, GoFundMe also accommodates budding entrepreneurs to raise capital for their startup projects. Indeed, the online fundraising website also have a business and entrepreneurs section from which you can browse for startup funding opportunities, allowing you to support someone to open a store, start a consulting business, and so on.
If you are wondering how GoFundMe makes money to support business growth, here’s the revenue model: It takes 5% as service fee on all transaction made – in real time; so, there will be no guessing game for project owners on how much they owe…
I have a project to launch – how to get started?
To learn how to start raising money, check out this intro video:
Pretty self-explaining. What you need to do is create an account and start creating your fund raising page. Then you can share your page on social media account you have and start receiving funds.
Just in case you are wondering whether crowd funding is effective or not, check out these success stories…
Click here to learn more about online fundraising.
Verdict
GoFundMe is probably the best crowd funding platform for the rest of us; when your personal endeavours might not make a good project on Kickstarter and other platforms, you will certainly find it as a good home for your causes.
So, what’s your next step? Well, whenever you are ready, you can start fundraising in less than 5 minutes; just sign up with GoFundMe (you can use your Facebook credentials to save time) and start creating your fundraising page right away.
Ivan Widjaya
A new fan of GoFundMe