What are crowdsourcing and crowdfunding?

Remember the post about predictions for philanthropy development in the Balkans? Well, one of the predictions was “New mechanisms and tools will be developed as to make giving easier. General increase of e-transactions will influence increase of e-philanthropy (online giving)… Promotion of crowdsourcing and crowdfunding mechanisms will increase.”

So what exactly are crowdsourcing and crowdfunding? Well, the source of all knowledge (also known as Wikipedia) says:

March 23, 2012

Why developing philanthropy is not a waste of time

Zoran Stojkovski’s article about local NGOs and local philanthropy definitely provoked me to share some of the thoughts on this issue. To start with data, Zoran shared that in Macedonia, “less than 10% of donations and sponsorships from local business sector goes to NGOs”. Not that is much different in other countries: in Bosnia and Herzegovina only about 17% of CSO report community contributions and 12% business contributions; in Croatia only 6,2% of CSOs income comes from companies; in Serbia, in the most recent research, 35% of CSOs stated financial support from business and 11% support from citizens. Last weeks’ post from Turkey reports that over 87% of individuals prefers direct giving as opposed to giving to CSOs. Just to back up this data, last years’ media monitoring showed that institutions are “beating” CSOs as recipients of the donations in all countries except Croatia.

March 16, 2012

Philanthropy in the region: Introducing Republic of Turkey

The size of philanthropy and social investment in Turkey are growing. Although philanthropy in Turkey is on the increase, the institutional form of giving is still low, reflecting a gap in knowledge about how to give effectively and a consequent lack of sophistication in mechanisms for giving.

Individual Giving

Individual giving is deeply rooted in the cultural and religious fabric of Turkey, yet it is these traditions that make Turkish people more likely to give directly to family and neighbors than through more organized efforts to civil society organizations (CSOs).  In fact, 80% of individuals report giving financial donations, but 87% prefer direct giving as the most effective form of philanthropy as opposed to giving to CSOs.

March 8, 2012

Local NGOs and Local Philanthropy – A natural match or… not quite?

Thinking about how to introduce and support undertaking more fundraising activities for mobilization of local resources to NGOs from Macedonia, CIRa in 2007 introduced so called “Philanthropy Development Grants (PDG)” under USAID funded CSSP- type of challenge grants where we offered to match all funds raised from local sources up to 5000 US$. Most of 13 organizations supported, succeed in their fundraising efforts (total of around 50.000 US$ from local resources raised) and especially they have stressed positive impact that their local fundraising efforts made to increasing their visibility on local level. The reaction of one NGO that was not so successful (only 525 US$ raised out of Silent Auction they organized) sharing their disappointment was” if we spend a month in project proposal development, than we will have raised 70.000 US$, and that for us organizing local fundraising event is simply wasting of time”. Except few organizations that have their annual budget covered from individual and corporate donations (i.e. Borka-local association that fight against breast cancer), most NGOs in Macedonia still think like NGO from example described above and believe that they will receive grant from remaining grant programs of international donors.

March 2, 2012