When I tell people that I work for a crowdfunding company, I am almost always confronted with looks of confusion, which are then quickly followed by a response along the lines of, “What on earth is crowdfunding?” It is safe to say, that while crowdfunding is growing quite quickly in this country, many people are still unsure about what it actually is. It is definitely time to unpack this growing venture which has changed many lives for the better.

‘Crowdfunding’ can be defined as: “the practice of funding a project or venture by raising monetary contributions from a large number of people, today often performed via Internet-mediated registries, but the concept can also be executed through mail-order subscriptions, benefit events, and other methods.” In simple terms, crowdfunding is therefore a means for your regular citizen to help fund their fellow regular citizen’s business idea or campaign. Some of the popular crowdfunding platforms around the world are ‘Kickstarter’ and ‘Go Fund Me’. Thundafund happens to be South Africa’s leading crowdfunding platform.

Thundafund has quickly become South Africa’s leading crowdfunding platform’s and one of the reasons for this, is the fact that Thundafund uses a ‘Rewards-based’,‘all-or-nothing’ crowdfunding system. A rewards-based crowdfunding system means that anyone who makes a contribution to a campaign, is guaranteed to receive some form of reward for their contribution. In addition to the ‘all-or-nothing’ system, Thundafund also ensures that any project or campaign can only claim their contributions if they have reached their ‘tipping point’. A ‘tipping point’ is the minimum amount of money needed to get your campaign started. This is incredibly beneficial because it not only ensures that contributors’ funds don’t go to waste, but it also helps campaigners see whether or not their project/business ideas are actually lucrative or not.

In addition to that, one of the factors which makes Thundafund stand out, is the fact that it focusses on growing African businesses/campaigns. For too long, Africans, specifically South Africans, have fallen into the mind-set which has led us to believe that in order to be successful, we have to work for someone else, instead of becoming entrepreneurs and actually working for ourselves. Thundafund has begun to dismantle this mind-set by quickly becoming an important platform for Africans to showcase their innovative ideas and start world-changing businesses and initiatives.

The time has come where we can no longer depend on big companies to fund our brilliant ideas and with crowdfunding, we no longer need to. Whether it’s your friends, family, friends of family, family of friends, or anyone really, platforms such as Thundafund are making it easier for your everyday person to invest in their fellow everyday people’s ideas, and make their dreams a reality. Whether you want to change the world with a great idea, or you want to change the world by funding a great idea, Thundafund is the name and crowdfunding is the game! Visit our website at http://www.thundafund.com and make it rain, today.

A note from the editor :-

This blog piece is taken from a fresh look from our social media intern, Zanele Kabane, to explain what Crowdfunding is about.