Philanthropy can be loosely described as the act of giving to the needy and being generous. It does not specify how much you need to give in order to be considered as generous. It does not matter if you do not have much to give. Any small act of generosity towards the need can make you a philanthropist. This is especially true in today’s digital age. With modern crowdfunding platforms, your small act of generosity can easily snowball and become substantial enough to make an impact.

Pooling Resources

Crowdfunding and crowdsourcing involve the pooling of resources. In terms of charitable giving, this usually pertains to financial resources. Do not think that having less than twenty dollars to spare is too little. If you get a thousand people to give at least $20 each, you will actually have $20,000. Surely, this money can already be used to fund a worthy cause. Keep this amount of funds coming on a regular basis and you have a stream of income to fund your cause for a longer period of time.

Popular

A popular way to raise funds for causes today is to go online and start a crowdfunding campaign. Traditionally, people collected money for charitable institutions through door to door or direct mail solicitations, telemarketing and telethon runs, and “pass the hat” or coin bank methods among others. With the influx of technological developments and the increase utilization of the internet, there are now more come more opportunities to present a charitable cause to online audiences and generate donations from the digital realm.

Campaigns

With a Google search of crowdfunding advocates, you can find a number of existing campaigns, ranging from wildlife conservation to community infrastructure improvements. Search engines provide exposure and visibility for crowdfunding websites. Potential donors can easily gain access to these websites and decide whether they want to contribute or not. You can make use of the worldwide web to disseminate information about your cause and attract the attention of those with money to spare as well as those who are willing to spare any amount of money.

Social Media

Social media is one of the platforms that connect individuals and create online communities. This is the same way through which crowdfunding works. You simply create a community of people who are interested in helping the same cause and then wait for the donations to come in.

Another Factor

One other factor that makes crowdfunding appealing to potential contributors is the fact that they can monitor where and how their donations are spent. Some platforms also have live money pools that show the growth of donations in real time. There is transparency in terms of information about goods that were purchased with the crowdfunding money, how much money was donated, and what other expenses were paid with the collected funds. Some online philanthropists may want to be assured that what they donated online was really used for the intended causes.

Opportunities

The opportunities provided by technology to people today should be maximized not only in terms of information dissemination, communication, and commerce. More importantly, should be maximized when it comes to the avenues it opens for everyone to help one another through various means. Crowdfunding for charitable giving is a great way to utilize today’s technology.