Crowd Power: Who Is the Crowd?

Abstract

Energy 4 Impact have released their latest report on Crowd Power, a project that aims to gain a deeper understanding of energy related crowdfunding projects in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. The report examines the profiles, motivations and challenges of individuals who fund energy access-related crowdfunding campaigns. The report aims to equip entrepreneurs, non-profits, incubators, practitioners, donors, development finance institutions and crowdfunding platforms with a deeper understanding of energy access crowdfunding and the role of interventions to catalyse donations and investments in energy access related crowdfunding. The study is based on data from over 900 individual donors and investors based in over 10 countries. The authors find that there are nuances across, and within, each crowdfunding type – donation, reward, debt and equity. The funder profiles, their motivations and the role of incentives (e.g. match funding, first-loss guarantees) differ between each of the 6 campaign archetypes we investigate in this paper. This work was supported by the UK Department for International Development’s Crowd Power programme