Sponsume

Sponsume
Type of site
 Crowdfunding
Available in English
Website http://www.sponsume.com
Commercial Yes
Launched August 2010

Sponsume was an online multicurrency crowd funding platform founded by French entrepreneur Gregory Vincent in 2010.[1] Its headquarters are in London, United Kingdom.[2] It stopped crowd funding services in 2014.

History

As a doctoral student at Oxford University, Vincent developed a keen interest in the works of Muhammad Yunus, a pioneer of microfinance. Vincent saw in peer-to-peer microfinance a brilliant alternative to traditional methods for funding innovative ideas.[3] The 2009 financial crisis and subsequent cuts to subsidies that hit the UK arts scene highlighted the need for an alternative, community-led way of raising funds for artists and innovators, prompting Vincent to launch Sponsume.[4]

Model

The site uses the power of social networks and the wisdom of crowds[5] to help fund a variety of projects ranging from films[6] and documentaries,[7] to music, theatre, photography, fashion, technology, scientific[8] research, green and social enterprise. As of 2012, Sponsume has helped crowd fund over 1000 campaigns.[9]

Project owners choose a timeframe deadline and a target funding goal. They create non-monetary rewards generally linked to their project.[10] The site levies a 4% fee for successful campaigns and collects 9% for campaigns that failed to reach their target amount.

Notable projects funded on Sponsume

  • DigVentures – the world's first crowd funded and crowd sourced archeological dig.[11]
  • Dirty White Gold – a documentary about the plight of India's cotton farmers.
  • Belarus Free Theatre – a campaign to help the exiled theatre set up a London office and fight for freedom of speech in Belarus. A number of artists, including actor Kevin Spacey supported the BFT's crowdfunding campaign.
  • The Halloween Kid – by Axelle Carolyn, James Webber and Neil Marshall – an homage to Halloween, as well as a tale of childhood, loneliness and monsters.
  • The Occupied Times of London – a non-profit, free newspaper that describes itself as the voice of the Occupy movement.
  • Spirit of '71 – by David McNulty: a documentary about the first Glastonbury Festival.
  • Undermining Justice – by Michael Watts: an investigative documentary about human rights abuses allegedly committed by British mining company Monterrico Metals in Peru.
  • Il Maestro – by Jennie Paddon: a short film about competitiveness in the world of classical musicians.[12]
  • Three-Legged Horses and Five Six Seven Eight! by Felipe Bustos Sierra, made with Debasers Filums, two Scottish crowdfunded film projects.
  • The Salt Maiden – Australian film shot on Coochiemudlo Island, Australia.
  • Living in the Future – web series documenting the birth and life of the first eco village in the UK.
  • The Better Man – British feature-film and winner of the Welsh Dragon Award at the International Film Festival of Wales 2013.
  • Plastic Republic – by University College London research students. Synthetic biology project to clean plastic pollution from the oceans using synthetic organisms.[13]

See also

References

  1. ↑ O'Hear, Steve (April 28, 2010). "Sponsume lets projects get off the ground with Groupon-style group funding model". TechCrunch.
  2. ↑ crunchbase.com (April 2010). "Sponsume CrunchBase Profile".
  3. ↑ Hutchinson, Jack (June 2010). "The viral funding model: Sponsume". AIR. Archived from the original on December 27, 2010.
  4. ↑ Youngs, Ian (March 28, 2011). "Arts world gets creative in funding crisis". bbc.co.uk.
  5. ↑ Gavin, Miranda (May 4, 2011). "Wisdom of crowds: Can crowdfunding help photographers?". British Journal of Photography. Archived from the original on April 14, 2012.
  6. ↑ Bustos Sierra, Felipe (January 7, 2011). "Help get the Rocky theme tune into Edinburgh rickshaw film". Guardian.co.uk.
  7. ↑ Bulkley, Kate (October 2010). "Is crowd-funding the future for documentaries?". Guardian.co.uk.
  8. ↑ Bridge, Mark (July 18, 2012). "Nanobots could turn 'Great Pacific Plastic Patch' into a floating island". .
  9. ↑ http://www.sponsume.com/projects/successful
  10. ↑ Kumar, Naresh (April 30, 2010). "Sponsume: Crowdsourced Project Funding With Benefits". PSFK.
  11. ↑ "Europe's first-ever crowd-funded and crowd-sourced archaeological excavation". Archeological Institute of America.
  12. ↑ Bridge, Mark (April 23, 2011). "Art-lovers step up to save creative projects". The Times.
  13. ↑ Bridge, Mark (July 18, 2012). "Nanobots could turn 'Great Pacific Plastic Patch' into a floating island". Wired.
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