The recent trending article about how a woman from New Jersey in the United States was able to raise over $1,500 via crowdfunding to attend the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight in Las Vegas has both inspired and produced doubt in me about the whole process.
Crowdfunding means exactly what it spells out: A crowd is funding something. The process usually happens online through the use of crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter, GoFundMe and YouCaring.com. According to HSBC, the crowdfunding industry was worth over $5.1 billion in 2013.
My first reaction to the article was: “Wow, people are really quite generous!” But I remembered that not all crowdfunding projects are about donating money to charities and different causes. Almost all projects on Kickstarter are actually product-centered. A person has an idea about a product that she wants to develop and market; crowdfunding helps if she doesn’t have the funds to put into that venture.
My first actual encounter with crowdfunding was in 2013 when Rob Thomas, the creator of the TV series “Veronica Mars,” started a Kickstarter.com campaign for the movie version for which fans had been clamoring for over half a decade. It was my favorite show growing up, and I wanted to be part of that campaign. Thomas was even offering walk-in roles in the film for those who would donate a huge amount. Sadly, though, international donations weren’t allowed. But in the end, the Veronica Mars campaign raised thrice its target amount of $2 million and became the site’s most successful crowdfunding project to date.
That woman from New Jersey who was able to generate the equivalent of about P80,000 just to see the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight showed both the beauty and the ugliness of the crowdfunding process. You could admire her gumption to tell the world what she wanted and the generous public that donated to her cause, but you could also scoff at her shallowness and the indulgent nature of those who gave her more reason to believe that making money is easy via crowdfunding.
If you don’t have a “controversial cause” like hers, it’s very hard to reach out to people who have the funds to donate to your project. Hundreds of projects seeking funding for medical expenses, exchange programs, volunteer projects, and educational expenses remain fundless across different crowdfunding sites. I myself am having a hard time raising the amount I need that will enable me to apply to PhD research programs abroad. I started my crowdfunding project in the hope of lightening the financial burden of $2,700 for application and exam fees. Although my end goal is to do research and add to the body of knowledge in the world, it’s really hard to find funding and make school fees sound fun to donors.
So it was with a weary heart that I read how the boxing-fan lady overshot her goal amount (and people are still donating!), while I’ve barely made $9 toward applying for a PhD program after maximizing all my social media accounts. Mysteries abound. When I do become a PhD student, I might even devote my dissertation on the whole crowdfunding process just to understand it better!
Sofia T. Contreras, 23, says she “discovered the joys of research” in Philippine Science High School–WVC. She graduated cum laude from the University of the Philippines Diliman and is about to complete a master’s degree from De La Salle University Manila while working as an executive assistant and volunteering as a research assistant. Her crowdfunding project is at https://tiny.cc/phdsofia.