crowd funding
ˈkraʊdfʌndɪŋ/
noun
- the practice of funding a project or venture by raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet."musicians, filmmakers, and artists have successfully raised funds and fostered awareness through crowd funding" ©
Why Botswana needs crowd-funding.... well the question is a fundamental one as Botswana is considered a small population of around ~2million. Most people gravitate towards the eastern part of the country where urban areas are located to look for opportunities in educational advancement, career or business or both.
In the recent times the government has launched numerous initiatives to try and encourage business projects aimed at diversification and eventually foster economic growth. Most of these initiatives have no strategic plan to measure their efficiency or monitoring from the conceptualization to final incubation. Very few people know the existence of venture capital funds that exist either directly or indirectly.
As a result many people with innovative ideas end up shelving them or discussing them over social gatherings or peeking on the television where an occasional 'Aha!' moment pops out. That is where crowd funding can intervene to help finance the projects that are rejected by the government institutions. The virtue of crowd-funding can also include options for equity buy in through private funding and if the company grows in leaps and bounds like Choppies (which one might argue for the case of limited market share and the ensuing retail wars between Choppies & Sefalana). Unless
What are the benefits of crowd-funding? The most obvious one is access to capital since entrepreneurs have a difficult time raising or getting access to funds. Unless if there were Angel Investors who are quick to write a check based on a brief pitch or even investors interested in buying-in through their generous investment. There is no set amount of what people can fund. Though a minimum can be set in order to mobilize resources anyone who has interest in the project can chip in. This in itself also cultivates the spirit of Ubuntu as a sense of togetherness is harnessed. One investor is not necessarily exposed through complete funding hence the risk is spread. It also allows crowd-sourcing of ideas and proposals through the collective efforts of various brains.This can also lead to concepts of Think Tanks where strategy is formulated and applied to various government and private sector areas.
So as a way of stimulating economic growth, crowd funding can go a long way in incubating start-ups and also easing the burden of government from economic developments. On the other hand government should move away from narrowly focusing on only sectors that it feels need growth and also not even implementing proper policies to accelerate their development. That is a topic for another day.
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