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Crowdfunding is, as the name suggests, a collective and grass-roots way of funding. It is a fund gathering in which a group of individuals supports a project created by other individuals or organizations. As for the classical whip round, single persons decide to give a contribution to a project they consider interesting but, thanks to the Web, this simple principle is staggeringly growing in dimension and potentiality.
The fund gathering happens, in fact, basically on line through social media and crowdfunding platforms, web sites to easily match project proposals and donations.
Arrived in Italy in 2005, crowdfunding has obtained notoriety after Obama made use of it to support his campaign in 2008. At present crowdfunding is used in impressive project – such as the project “Tous Mécènes", promoted by Louvre to succeed with Nike di Samotracia's restoration – and in different areas: from scientific research to the support during humanitarian tragedies or natural catastrophes (as in the recent Italian earthquake), til the funding of business startup projects.
In 2015 Università Cattolica di Milano realized a report identifying 82 platforms in Italy, 69 of them already active and 13 in the launch phase.
The platforms' mapping shows a continuous growth of the sector and, according to last information edited by Stared (May 2016), the overall value of fund gathering among Italian platforms is about 67 million euro.