May the “fourth” be with you! As we celebrate America’s Independence Day, we also couldn’t take our eyes off with what’s happening in the crowdsourcing space. Beyond the fireworks, parties and on the other side of the world, the Greek financial crisis, here is a curated weekly roundup of the breaking news and must-read thought leadership pieces on the crowd economy this week.
Unilever betting on crowdsourcing for sustainability ideas
Unilever is tapping its customers via crowdsourcing. How? The company plans to crowdsource “sustainability ideas from consumers as the latest phase of its Foundry initiative to connect the business to entrepreneurial ideas,” The Drum wrote (via @seb_joseph). With the crowd contributing to business, ideas are limitless.
The impact of crowdsourcing to civic campaigns
We’ve heard (and read) quite a good deal of insights on how crowdsourcing is used in business. But as we dig deeper to this business model, we also include its contribution to civic campaigns and philanthropic activities. In Diginomica, Jon Reed (via @jonerp) shares how the Freedmen’s Bureau Project, with the collaboration of various organizations, has digitized the records to make the search of the family records for slavery-era African-Americans easy, open, and transparent.
Need financial assistance? Symbid offers crowdfunded loans
One of the growing industries today is fin-tech as startups and entrepreneurs are given a wide range of options on how to pull resources via crowdfunding, whether in a reward- or equity-based. Thanks to Symbid, a viable option is added to the crowdfunding space—its first crowdfunded loans offered to serve a broad network of entrepreneurs, Crowdfunding Insider (CI) reported. And it’s happy to serve its first applicant. “The new debt offer is from a young company called CareRate, a healthcare review app. The loan is offeringa 5.5% yield and is live now,” CI said (via @crowdfundinside).
Crowdfunding for product development
Crowdfunding isn’t for the faint-hearted. It involves a lot of hard work and requires a change of mindset—that bold mindset as Peter Diamandis wrote. And you can also use it on product development, too. Entrepreneur contributor David Drake (via @DavidDrakeVC) shares six ways to use crowdfunding for product development.
Greek financial crisis and crowdfunding
Can crowdfunding contribute to Greece bailout? In his post, “Greece Bailout Possible – If Everyone In The EU Buys a Feta-Olive Salad,” Epi Ludvik Nekaj shares his insights on crowd capital – why he believes that the crowd has more money, billions will be bankers in 5 years, and the Blockchain technology in future currencies.
The numbers on non-profit crowdfunding
Entrepreneur staff, Carly Okyle (via @carlyokyle) published an infographic, showing the numbers on non-profit crowdfunding. “Crowdfunding has also helped nonprofits reach new audiences and find committed donors: 28 percent of those who donate to a non-profit cause are likely to donate again, according to an infographic compiled by cloud-based fundraising platform MobileCause,” she wrote.
[Photo credit via Unilever video/screenshot],Creative Commons license/Flickr]
There are tons of amazing stories out there. What else caught your eye this week? Did you come across some breaking news or a good thought piece?
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