Crowd funding is about to take off in the Netherlands. It’s an internet based way of getting people to part with their money to support projects.

From January 1, around 80 Dutch projects have been co-financed by crowd funding. In the first six months of 2011, the amount raised online came to €750,000, NOS Nieuws discovered. The same amount again was spent on projects advertised on foreign websites.
Art and publishing
In the last few months several new internet based crowd funding platforms have been started while others have extended their activities. There are crowd funding platforms for charities, journalists, writers, entrepreneurs and artists. People who pay into the projects are sometimes recompensed in money, at other times in gifts. Art projects like those at Red Light Radio and book publishing have been most successful at raking in the money.
No guarantee for success
Consultant Gijsbert Koren is monitoring the trend. He is confident crowd funding is growing fast but has a long way to go compared to the United States. ‘There is a site in the States called kickstarter.com which has raised 50 million dollars and counting. Much more than here. It’s a question of culture: the Americans are used to putting up their own money for projects.’
Not every project is successful. Koren thinks around 50 percent raise the money within the allotted deadline.
According to Koren, crowd funding will be the way forward for many different types of organisation. ‘Think of sports projects, or finding the money for a play area. You could look at it as a voluntary added tax.’
See article for a list of crowd funding websites.

This is an unofficial translation