Skip to main content

Article: "Why So Little Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Crowdfunding?"

Thought this was an interesting article, reminiscent of:

Why Does the Fed Have So Little Supplier Diversity?

In the Crowdfunding article under review here, "Tides Foundation Program Director Anthony Jewett raises an interesting question about crowdfunding: 'Where’s the color in the crowd?' He acknowledges many crowdfunding success stories in an industry that he says will generate $2.8 billion in funding for start-up and small enterprises this year (nearly double what it generated last year) and he argues that crowdfunding has 'more serious potential to democratize access to capital across the for-profit, nonprofit and political arenas over the long term.' But he is troubled by the lack of people of color in the crowdfunding industry, which is dominated by leaders looking much like the venture capital and private equity industries in terms of ethnic and racial diversity—which isn’t much."

We agree. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Crowdfunding Accounting 101 - Revenue Recognition in Crowdfunding

A start-up using crowd funding to create a product is different from a normal company. The start-up has cash inflows from donations but does not have a product, yet. In this situation, we recommend using completed-contract method to recognize revenue. Under this way of thinking, we assume the start-up is akin to a project or a long-term contract. The crowdfunding company will find it difficult to estimate the revenue from crowdfunders and, hence, the cost of rewards or perks. Under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and GAAP guidelines, if the firm cannot reliably measure the outcome of the project, revenue should be recognized based on contract costs. These costs should be expensed when incurred. Profit is recognized only at the completion of the project. In summary, for crowdfunding companies, revenue, expense, and profit are recognized only when the crowdfunded product is actually manufactured. 1 For example, assume that AAA Corp. wants to manufacture bicyc...

Top 50 Crowdfunding Campaigns: Fifty Most Successful Crowdfunding Campaigns

  Top 50 Crowdfunding Campaigns: Fifty Most Successful Crowdfunding Campaigns Kindle Edition https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RKK4NL0/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

Top 50 Crowdfunding Campaigns

The chart below results from an analysis of the Top 50 crowdfunding campaigns on Indiegogo, 'Top' measured by total dollars raised. The X axis shows the dollar amount of the reward or  perk ($1 to $10, $11 to $20, etc.) The Y axis shows the cumulative number of rewards/perks collected across all 50 campaigns, so the chart shows that, for the top 50 crowdfunding campaigns on Indiegogo, 100,000 rewards/perks with a  value ranging from $1 dollar to $10 dollars were selected by supporters.  Normally, we might expect this chart to be convex, declining steadily from $1 to $5000. This is not what we see, however. It seems that people are willing to donate small dollar amounts, up to about $50, and then contributors look to donate at least $100. What's going on here? To explain this phenomenon, classify backers into two categories: 1. The first category are people who simply want to help. They donate less than $50 dollars and do not donate for the reward (normally a T-shi...