Crowdfunding as a Potential Solution for Social and Cultural Issues in Rural Communities in Russia

Abstract

In this paper the term 'crowdfunding' is defined and it demonstrates how this could be used as a potential solution for social and cultural issues in rural communities. In the academic literature, crowdfunding is primarily examined as a brand-new business tool, a way to collect new investment. However, a large proportion of projects created on Russian crowdfunding platforms are directly linked to cultural and social initiatives. Moreover, the sponsors of such projects often forgo any material reward for participation and donate their money without any incentives beyond the project’s completion. In light of this fact it is important to examine socially-oriented crowdfunding projects, their growth and spread in Russia; attempt to answer the question whether they are more or less successful than other projects in respective crowdfunding platforms; track the geography of such projects and figure out if the phenomenon is limited to developed urban areas of Russia. In order to achieve that goal, the subjects (social crowdfunding project centered around rural revitalization) were deliberately selected. For the purposes of this examination, over two hundred projects launched between 2012 and 2017 were chosen. All of these were from the two major Russian crowdfunding platforms: Boomstarter and Planeta.ru. The search centered around the keywords 'village', 'rural', 'hamlet' and 'countryside'. Projects were analysed based on their fundraising success (a successful project was defined as one that managed to raise the initially declared amount, or a partial amount according to the rules of the platform in allotted time), thematic differences and geographic location. The examination showed that the chosen projects were in fact more successful when compared to the platform average, thematic differences in projects did not impact the success rate and geographically there were projects from 54 subjects of the Russian Federation out of 85.