Crowdfunding Education

Running List

Crowdfunding Explained – An In Depth Look
- May, 2012; Blog post written by Dave Milliken, co-founder of fundinglaunchpad
- A great distilled overview of crowdfunding

The Jobs Act: A Legal Overview by Skadden
- May, 2012
- Best legal breakdown of the JOBS Act. Discussion of the Title III (CROWDFUND Act) begins on page 7

Plain English Overview of CROWDFUND Act of the JOBS Act
- April, 2012
- Redundant with Skadden’s overview, but a good alternative if short on time

The Venture Crowd by Nesta…
- July, 2012
- Most comprehensive investment-based crowdfunding (“ICF”) report I’ve found. Discusses in great detail the global state of the industry and the unique challenges platforms face going forward going forward. Particularly focuses on equity-based crowdfunding. A must read

RocketHub Whitepaper on the JOBS Act
- May, 2012
- Rockethub is the third largest donation/perk based crowdfunding platform currently operating (behind Kickstarter and Indiegogo). Of these three, it is the only platform that’s announced its intention to support ICF. On June 28, they testified in Washington on the CROWDFUND Act
- This whitepaper includes their interpretation of the CROWDFUND Act as written, along with their personal input and recommendations
- Important to recognize Rockethub’s vested interests as an ICF platform, but their commentary is mostly (in my opinion) well-balanced and thoughtful

FundingLaunchPad Consumer Awareness & Interest White Paper
- March, 2012
- Polled 200+ consumers to gauge consumer awareness of and interest in crowdfunding
- Very promising results: 55% of consumers polled were aware of crowdfunding; 54% expect to invest when legal to some capacity; 40% of those expecting to invest listed supporting small business as a motivating factor
- Caveat: research methodology is suboptimal (most participants were sourced through social networks of founders; likely bias given age and affinity towards technology)

Crowdfunding: the next generation – four changes that will shake up the model
- June, 2012
- Co-founder of Appstori.com, a crowdfunding platform, makes the following four predictions: (i) Vertical platforms will emerge to focus on select market segments; (ii) Crowdfunding platforms will evolve into “full-service” communities to better meet the needs of their members; (iii) Creativity and innovation through online crowdfunding will be supported not just by individuals but by organizations as well; and (iv) Benefits-based crowdfunding will complement equity-based platforms

www.crowdsourcing.org
- Houses a wealth of resources covering all facets of the crowdsourcing industry
- Markets an accreditation service for crowdfunding platforms (CAPS: The Crowdfunding Accreditation for Platform Standards)