Crowd what…?  According to Wikipedia.org crowdfunding can be defined as: “Crowdfunding (alternately crowd financing, equity crowdfunding, crowd-sourced fundraising) is the collective effort of individuals who network and pool their money, usually via the internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations.”

So, why am I talking about this for this week’s entry to Random Stuff We Like…?  Well, it just so happens that we are working on a crowdfunding campaign where our goal is to raise money for additional help on the sites, and more importantly – raise money to use for marketing our sites.  There are several companies out there that will help you put your crowdfunding program together (for a fee of course) and we have chosen to go with a company called Fundable.com.  We have been working with them for about a month now, and within the next month – we will launch our campaign.

Here is how it works.  Fundable.com sets up an online profile for us that anyone who has access to the internet can look at and contribute to.  We set a goal for how much money we want to raise and explain who we are, why we deserve the money, and what we intend to do with the money.  In exchange for money from people, we offer rewards.  For instance, if you give us $25.00 we will give you a permanent listing on our site as a contributing member, a decal (for your car, Vespa, bike, go-cart or skateboard, motor home, etc.) a water bottle, and 5 credits to be used on the site to “purchase” images you like.  Just the credits alone are a $75.00 value!

The list for rewards, of course,  goes up the more you contribute.

If you have been following us for the last year or so, you will know that we have been hard at work building a unique, creative tool that we believe will have real impact on how artists are able to create and imagine.  We have received positive feedback from friends and family as well as professionals in many of the industries we intend to target with our marketing.  In short – we have built it – now they will come (with marketing, financial support, moral support and a lot more hard work of course…)

We are very excited about this campaign and will be telling you more about it in the next few weeks.  Please keep an eye out for our e-mails announcing the start of the campaign and we greatly appreciate any help you can provide!

Stay tuned…