One of the biggest hurdles many people find themselves when starting a project or fundraising for an idea is the financial capital to get them on the right path. Financial funding plays a large portion in the life and death of certain products. It is essentially how the world operates. But how can you find the funding if everything you had was invested in your product? How can you possibly establish yourself if you can’t even find the capital to finance your goals? The answer is simple; try crowdfunding.

Crowdfunding, also known as crowdsourcing, has become incredibly popular in the news and social media. Many startup companies, inventions, and even non-profit organizations have utilized this strategy to help increase their capital for their business. But what exactly is it?

By definition, crowdfunding is the practice of financially funding a project or venture through small amounts of donations from a large number of people, typically through the Internet. Think of this as online fundraising. For crowdfunding, there are two basic models. The first model is known as the rewards-based crowdfunding model. Rewards-based crowdfunding is where people can pre-purchase a product, buy various rewards, or simply donate to the company. For this concept, the donors are simply helping the cause. In comparison to rewards-based crowdfunding, the second model, equity crowdfunding, looks for donors to become shareholders in a company. In equity crowdfunding, a company will often sell ownership takes online to require the necessary funds to make them operational and profitable for the future.

Because of crowdfunding, many industries were able to grow exponentially over the past few years. In addition, crowdfunding sites were able to raise billions of capital for various campaigns such as charities, social impacts, consumer packaged goods, innovative inventions, games, startup companies, and much more. Without these sites, many modern ideas would not have made it to our homes.

Below, you will find some of the best crowdfunding sites to help aid you on your journey. Remember make your presence strong when you’re online. Donors want to know what they are investing in. Tell your story. Be strong and appealing. The best way to succeed with these sites is making your story appeal to people. Be empathetic, strong, and confident.

Kickstarter

Kickstarter is one of the major crowdfunding sites to date. The service itself gets a lot of media attention. Kickstarter helps a variety of people is a range of interest. On this crowdfunding site, you can find artist, musicians, filmmakers, designers, charities, and consumer packaged goods that are trying to establish themselves in their congested markets. The one great thing about Kickstarter is that it is incredibly user friendly. In addition, no financial transactions are changed until time runs out or the project is fully funded. One thing to keep in mind is that Kickstarter takes 5% off the top and the rest goes to the inventor or creator to the campaign.

Indiegogo

Indiegogo is one of the first and largest global fundraising sites that help individuals, businesses, and nonprofits raise money online. It allows people to activate their global community with their user-friendly dashboard. It has been estimated that over nine million people from all around the world visits Indiegogo on a monthly basis. Things to keep in mind are that the site takes 4% off the top of your fundraising if you reach your funding goal. In addition, the site offers reward-base crowdfunding encouraging creators and developers to offer perks for the community to help fundraise their projects.

Quirky

Quirky is a crowdfunding site mainly meant for inventors and gadgets. The site itself has an excellent track record. The one upside to this is that the process of presenting your idea to the Quirky community is a bit more involved than the other sites. For you to create a campaign, you need to submit your idea to the Quirky community so that they can weigh in on whether or not the idea is financially and successfully tangible. The positive is that the Quirky community is incredibly active and engaged to build, develop, and produce ideas. Pricing is also on a sliding scale meaning that people who get in early can get lower prices. Last but not least, Quirky and manufacture the product in-house.

DonorsChoose

For those looking to help aid and donate to the education sector, take a look into DonorsChoose. DonorsChoose is a nonprofit organization that allows individuals to donate directly to teachers and their classrooms. This can vary from classroom projects, class trips or class resources to better aid the future leaders of tomorrow.

Rockethub

Rockethub is another large online crowdfunding platform. It users usually include a variety of people from music, business, science, arts, fashion, startups, and nonprofits. Rockethub combines a traditional crowdfunding site where individuals can promote and raise for financial capital in addition to larger sponsors such as corporate businesses and organizations that want to donate to a specific sector. The service itself takes out a 4% cut from the amount raised and is incredibly user friendly.