crowdfunding

Reading about the funding gap that exists for social enterprises because of their existence somewhere in between for profit and not-for-profit models got be thinking about different crowdfunding models and how those could be better used to support social ventures. Websites like kickstarter.com and indiegogo.com provide groups, individuals, and businesses a way to raise funds from people all over the world through the power of the Internet. Kickstarter's model focuses mainly on creative projects, but it has been very successful in helping all sorts of people get funding they could never have raised on their own. Generally speaking, the projects proposed don't need to raise all that much money (certainly not as much money as would be required by significant social enterprises), but it provides an interesting model that could be potentially be expanded. Socially minded projects seem like they would be perfect so funding campaigns designed around social media and awareness. The kind of crowdfunding model described above could easily benefit initiatives focusing on issues of poverty, education, and other basic human needs to the same way Kickstarter helps creative projects. The questions is, how can we expand that model to provide the kind of financial support some of these projects need? I'm not sure how to make this kind of crowdfunding sustainable or robust enough to provide the kind of support needed by social enterprises, but I think it's certainly worth thinking about.