Crowdfunding/Crowdsourcing

Definition

Crowdfunding or crowd-sourcing describes the practice of funding a project or venture by raising many small donations of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet. It can be used to fundraise for a wide variety of projects initiated by faculty, staff, students, and groups on campus at Georgia Southern University.

Background Information

In recent years researchers, faculty and staff at U.S. colleges and universities have been using crowdfunding as a resource for funding research and other projects. Georgia Southern University (GS) has cultivated relationships with specific crowdfunding websites to support these crowdfunding efforts. These sites provided an outlet for projects that weren’t allotted significant department resources to bridge a funding gap, with fundraising goals typically between $3,000 and $25,000. The university has selected experiment.com for funding research and other projects in the sciences.

The use of third-party crowdfunding platforms to raise money to support faculty and student research and other projects is becoming increasingly widespread. In response to this trend, GS has developed procedures to guide projects seeking to use research funds raised through crowdfunding mechanisms.

Guidance

The use of crowdfunding or crowd-sourcing as described  and the accompanying procedures is subject to all University rules, policies, compliance regulations, and state and federal law and applies to all employees, affiliate staff, students and other individuals. The purpose is to maintain control over the use of University resources in crowdfunding/crowd-sourcing efforts, to track the level of campus crowdfunding, and to assess the impact of such activity at the University.

Last updated: 7/7/2022