Pages

Monday, March 23, 2015

How Can Crowdfunding For Women Help Support Women

By Lelia Hall


Numbers do not lie, and the same can be said of the statistics in the Wall Street Journal Reports. In these reports, females are clearly lagging behind males in most areas of business, but this is not true when it comes to crowdfunding. In these campaigns, the ladies are simply smarter than the gents, and this is for nothing other than the way we are naturally created. In order to succeed in these areas, you are required to clearly express and communicate your idea in a way that captures the emotions of the contributors and the backers. Females are better in this, and this explains why crowdfunding for women is a better way of raising funds for female entrepreneurs.

The Wall Street Journal statistics are clearly what any upcoming and prospective female entrepreneur will not want to look at. Only 17% the board seats belong to women in the Fortune 500 companies. Of all the venture-backed firms, only 8% of CEOs are females and 30% of companies are owned by women.

As a powerful source of seed capital and a good alternative for business startups, this method of funding enables the entrepreneur to tap into a large number of individuals of different backgrounds (crowd), each investing a small amount through a virtual network or a social network. Millions or businesses are funded each year and billions of funds are raised through this method.

It can be done through a social network or a virtual network. Today, billions or funds are raised benefiting millions of startups, most owned by female entrepreneurs. Some of the leading sites for crowdfunding include Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and RocketHub. Most of these are broad-based and do not target any particular gender. However, there are sites that specialize in women crowdfunding. A good example is Plum Alley.

There are two major alternatives in achieving this, a social network or a virtual network. Some sites have come up to dominate the virtual network area. These are the Indiegogo, Kickstarter, and the RocketHub. In these sites, all entrepreneurs are given equal opportunities regardless of gender. The good news for the ladies is that there are sites that target women as the niche. Plum Alley, for instance, is run by women for women.

This method of raising funds for the company also comes with many benefits for ladies. First, it is a way to overt sexual harassment. Stories have been told where the so-called male investors lure female entrepreneurs for meeting in the pretense that they are going to pitch their companies only to end up receiving unwarranted sexual advances.

There are several advantages of crowdfunding, particularly for ladies. In this method, they have the chance to raise capital in a more transparent method without having to go through situations in which sex pests can take advantage of them. There are several published and unpublished stories where ladies narrate how they get unwarranted sexual advances from a few rogue male investors pretending to help them pitch their businesses.

It also comes as an alternative source of capital that is better as compared to pitching in a room full of intimidating male audience (business angel) where the ladies are likely to feel intimidated and less successful. In this manner, they get to tell their story in a way that captures the emotion of the targeted investor and thus can easily succeed. In this method, you get to use your network of colleagues, friends, family members, and vendors as a powerful marketing force.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment