The first crowd funding platform in Moldova - Government 24 – has been officially launched, IPN reports.
In the launch, TEDx Chisinau supervisor Elena Zgardan, who created the platform together with a team of enthusiasts, said that Government 24 is actually a communication platform between persons with project ideas and members of society. By modest donations made online, society can help implement these projects and ideas.
“We informed about the creation of this platform on December 22, 2015. The platform invites the people to invest, support or donate for different local social or entrepreneurial causes. During two months, we managed to launch 20 projects. Two projects were completed, while 15 are under implementation. Our citizens contributed over €71,000 to these projects. The donations represented US$1 dollar to US$500 and were 52% made by the diaspora and 48% by the people from the country,” she stated.
Among the crowd funding platform’s advantages, Elena Zgardan mentioned the modest donations, their distribution online, time efficiency and risk-free access to capital. There are also some disadvantages, including the significant effort that needs to be made by persons who suggest ideas or projects to convince society, the potential donors, of their utility.
Expert Eugen Giletski spoke about the possibility of launching more such platforms in Moldova, as an alternative to the resources provided by the state. According to him, it is very important to intensify the financial education of persons who launch such platforms and of those who donate money. But this necessitates the broad informing of the population including the diaspora, about the role of crowd funding.
Crowd funding describes the collective effort of individuals who network and pool their resources, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations. Crowd funding is used in support of a wide variety of activities, including disaster relief, citizen journalism, support of artists by fans, political campaigns, startup company funding, etc. In the U.S., 344 projects were funded by such a method starting with 2006, in France - 53, in the UK - 86, while in Russia - 4.
