The concept of crowd-funding has been around for a while now but is only now beginning to get into the limelight as more and more people realize the power of crowd-funding charities to change society. The recently concluded Mozilla FirefoxChallenge is an excellent example of this. The Challenge brought together 12 celebrities and individuals on a fundraising marathon to raise funds for their favourite charities. Each celebrity had to create awareness and try to raise the most funds. Individuals could participate by either donating or signing up as co-fundraisers.
The Challenge, which was run on the Crowdrise crowdfunding platform was ultimately won by Sophia Bush who ran the month-long campaign in support of F-Cancer, a non-profit that seeks to get Generation Y to engage with their parents and elders on the benefits of early testing and screening. Sophia managed to raise a substantial $118,110, which was over and above the targeted $60,000 goal.
The success of the F-Cancer campaign came mostly from the volunteer co-fundraising teams who managed to each raise $500 or more. What is interesting about the campaign and what really demonstrates the power of crowd funding is the fact that over 90% of donations were less that $100 showing that it is not only big bucks sponsors who can really make a difference. The money raised will go towards running the F-Cancer foundation for the next 12 months. The other campaigns may not have hit such a high target but they did still raise substantial amounts nonetheless. All the campaigns are still live and donations towards the various charities are still open.
