Oh, what a glorious world we are living in. Remember the time when you had a magnificent business idea and there was not a single bank or an investor that would back you up? Awwww, the bad old days... Luckily for you, me, and the rest of the people on this third marble from the Sun, times when our funding options were limited to individual support are over. Crowdfunding has opened doors to a new era and what a glorious era it is.

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Since many people are still wondering about what crowdfunding is and how it works, here is a helpful treat for you. In this text, we will demystify it and tell you everything you need to know and leave you with the knowledge that will help you in your future projects. This knowledge will help you to help others so we can all embark into a better future.

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Lets start by defining the crowdfunding. Suppose you need some money for your project. You could get the money by a single investor or a bank loan. Those are the old ways. With crowdfunding, people all over the world are helping you so instead of having one person to give you a single large amount, you have a crowd of people with each person giving you a small amount.

> Definition of crowdfunding : the practice of obtaining needed funding (as for a new business) by soliciting contributions from a large number of people especially from the online community merriam-webster.com

Crowdfunding is a method of raising capital from a large pool of individuals.

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Crowdfunding enables fundraisers to collect money from a large number of people via online platforms. The mainstream approach is limiting your chances of success to a couple of wealthy individuals or institutions while crowdfunding is enabling you to reach a wider audience on a single platform. Those people are waiting for your next good idea. They are waiting to help you grow your business or a worthy cause.

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There are websites called crowdfunding platforms, Fundition.io is one of them, that connect fundraisers and the crowd. They provide a secure and easy to use service with a fee usually being charged to the fundraiser. There are those platforms that operate in an all-or-nothing funding model where if you raise your amount you get it and if you do not, well, then you obviously do not get it. On the other hand, there are also platforms where you get all that was raised no matter the amount.

There are many types of crowdfunding...

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From peer-to-peer lending that is similar to bank loans because money is repaid with interest to the investors to donation-based crowdfunding where crowd receives no financial or material return, there are many different ways of crowdfunding. Some of them are equity crowdfunding where people receive stakes in a business, rewards-based crowdfunding where investors get a non-financial reward such as goods and services, and revenue-sharing that allows fundraisers to share future profits/revenues with the crowd that funded them. The crowd can also invest in a debt security like bonds of a certain business or take part in various hybrid models of crowdfunding where the funder combines elements of more than one crowdfunding type. To simplify, there are 3 major categories of different crowdfunding methods.

1. Donation-Based - no financial return to the investors 2. Rewards-Based - investors get a product or a service 3. Equity-Based -investors receive a share of the profits

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Whatever your project is, from intellectual property, science, or real estate maybe to philanthropy and civic projects, crowdfunding is easy, practical and efficient for your success.

It is fun too.

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It is hard to pick among all the benefits and choose the best ones. With crowdfunding, you have a much bigger reach and an access to thousands of possible investors. You can promote your campaign on social networks, email or any other way and have an easy marketing that does not take much of your time. With more people knowing about it, you get more validation because there will be questions and reviews from the crowd. This serves as an excellent way to refine your campaign. Since your fundraising is centralized with an easy access, you save time and money that you would normally spend with pursuing investors individually. There is no more updating each one of them and wasting your resources on endless meetings and presentations which leave you with more time to actually run your business and be productive in other ways.

Crowdfunding works for you and not the other way around.

_{Join a community with heart based giving at its core}

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