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About Crowd Funding

Posting #2 in a series on Resource Development
See # 1, Five Elements of Strategic Resource Development

First, a definition from the Oxford Dictionary: Crowdfunding (a form of crowdsourcing) is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising monetary contributions from a large number of people, today often performed via Internet-mediated registries, but the concept can also be executed through mail-order subscriptions, benefit events, and other methods. i

Wikipedia adds this: Crowdfunding is a form of alternative finance, which has emerged outside of the traditional financial system. ii

This latter definition is sometimes called “Equity Crowd Funding” and investors receive equity in the business or venture they are contributing to. This posting is not about this type of Crowd Funding. Rather I am writing about the most common type of Crowd Funding today which allows anyone to donate their money to anything that gets posted on an Internet-based Crowd Funding website. Recipients of funding can be individuals in need, informal groups, performance artists, individual schools, clubs, inventors, product developers, techno- projects, as well as conventional charities and businesses.

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Five Elements of Strategic Resource Development

It’s tough out there for non-profits and social causes when it comes to raising money, especially money for core operations and services. All of the seed grants, innovation grants, or target specific project grants are fine and dandy, but the growth in sustainable funding is not growing, is it? Impact Investing, Social Enterprise, and Crowd Funding are among the more recent methods of financing social good, though the extent of their reach and utility by the sector overall are emerging, not yet clearly understood.

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Signals of Coming Disruption

Big change doesn't just click on, it occurs over time, starting out often as weak signals of the change to come. Sometimes it’s like the old frog in the boiling water story. Put the frog in when the water is cool and turn up the flame and eventually the frog realizes its plight, just too late to adjust, to escape.

For years, donor giving has been changing. Charities have become increasingly dependent on larger gifts from fewer donors. As the economy has served to increase the income and wealth gap between the small numbers of wealthy and the rest of everyone else, we have seen food bank use escalate and a growing number of workers living pay check to pay check. Job security is no longer a reasonable expectation for a growing number of people, much less the chance for advancement. Employee supported pensions are no longer the norm and health and dental benefits are harder to come by for low income workers and many who do not yet qualify as “low income” workforce members.

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Edmonton Moves Forward with its Roadmap to End Poverty in a Generation

Mayor Don Iveson's Taskforce to End Poverty in a Generation had its final meeting on May 30, 2016. Actually the meeting was really a celebratory gathering, a time to acknowledge the work and leadership of so many. 

In particular we celebrated the publication of End Poverty Edmonton’s Roadmap to Guide Our Journey which is based on the EPE’s Strategy to achieve a poverty free city within a generation. Both of these documents have been endorsed by Edmonton’s City Council and indeed, City Council has already been involved in implementing certain aspects of the strategy even before the Roadmap was finalized.

Thanks to a partnership with the Alberta Government, the City will be launching a low income bus pass that will provide a 60% discount on the standard fares for public transit. The program is being launched in 2017 with three years of funding in place. The total cost is estimated to be around $12.4 million and will be split 50-50 between the province and the city. Approximately 20,000 low income families will benefit from this savings. For more information about how the subsidy works, click HERE.

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Innovation. What is it?

Innovation.

We all love it, want it, speak it, eat it, and it feels good when something we do is affirmed as innovative by others, especially those we admire. Sometimes, though, and perhaps often, when we don’t hear such affirmations, we create our own. We cite our own work as innovative.

However the recognition of our innovative work manifests, the cynic inside of me does wonder from time to time if our desire to be innovative gives birth to claiming innovation in much of the work we do. That cynic inside of me has wondered the same about me on occasion; just mention that to suggest that my inner cynic has no qualms about digging in on me, what I think, and what I do (and don’t)

What it is?

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Income Trends and Canadian Consumer Debt

Over the past 15 years Canadian consumer debt has risen dramatically.  Since 2000, the percentage of Canadian debt in relationship to disposable income has risen from 110% of income to about 165%. The change in debt to income ratio represents a 12 year increase of 50%.

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