Does Crowdfunding Have A Future In Indonesia? We Take A Look At Five Crowdfunding Sites

TECHINASIA: Brooklyn-based crowdfunding site Kickstarter has proven many times over that collecting funds from the public for creative projects can work. In crowdfunding, backers donate money to make a project or cause they admire come true. Some crowdfunding campaigns are based on a pre-order system, where the backer gets a product once it is completed and deliverable. Others are based on a system where the backer gets a gift or some form of other perk as reward for their contribution.

Kickstarter regularly releases statistics on the site’s performance, and the latest numbers released in February show that the platform successfully funded almost 84,000 projects and has collected over US$1.4 billion since its inception in 2009. Kickstarter projects have a 40 percent success rate. 101 projects raised more than US$1 million in funds each.

Can crowdfunding find similar success in Indonesia? Culturally, Indonesians are familiar with the “gotong royong” principle. Gotong royongmeans working together as a community. But today, Indonesia’s crowdfunding sites are still far removed from the volume and success of platforms like Kickstarter.

Though crowdfunding pioneers began testing the waters in Indonesia as early as 2011, some of those early movers like BursaIde are now inactive, or, like Patungan, even offline.

Of the early movers, Wujudkan is still alive, and new ones have joined the ranks. But so far, it seems like the spirit of gotong royong has yet to find its way into this digital form of giving in Indonesia.

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