Coloradoan.com  by Oliver St John (USA Today) May 23, 2013

Rebecca Bloomfield has raised more than $12,000 via crowdfunding, making it possible for her to get started on her organic farm in Ontario, Canada.

More than anything, Rebecca Bloomfield wants to own her own organic farm. To accomplish this, though, in a social-media age and without much capital, she has to be something else first: a crowdfunding guru.

Just as she taught herself to grow organic food, she’s taught herself how to raise money for her farm in Ontario, Canada, via crowdfunding — soliciting donations over social media with a video she hopes will tug on heartstrings and wallets.

Just like other small-business owners who don’t want to take out a bank loan — or can’t — there are new options for the social-media savvy. crowdfunding is quickly becoming the go-to fundraising technique for entrepreneurs and small-business owners.

According to crowdsourcing research firm Massolution, a growing 16.9 percent of the crowdfunding activity, which raised $2.7 billion last year, came from small businesses. If this keeps up, crowdfunding platforms could give even the $28-billion-a-year fundraising capability of the U.S. venture capital industry a run for its money.

Since kicking off her crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, Bloomfield, 31, has raised more than $12,000, making it possible for her to install a deer fence and buy tools she needs to get started. And she’s still got a few days left to raise her goal of $25,000.

“I was surprised about the amount of money that came in just a few days,” said Bloomfield, a native of Chagrin Falls, Ohio. “I guess it was just a gut feeling that crowdfunding would be a really good way to do it.”

Her video, titled “How to Start a Farm in Five Minutes,” features a monologue in Bloomfield’s quiet voice about her passion for growing food, played over an animated montage of vegetable photos with a folksy tune in the background. She learned how to use low-budget software such as iMovie and Animoto to make her video.

Indiegogo founder Danae Ringelmann said “there’s no surprise there” that the crowdfunding platform she helped start — to help filmmakers and theater productions raise cash — has become the sort of thing you can use to start a farm. She sees it becoming “the incubation platform for the world.”

Source:  here