The Morning Briefing: Crowdfunding and causes

"The Morning Briefing" is SmartPlanet's daily roundup of must-reads from the web. This morning we're reading about how crowdfunding can help promote causes.

1.) Crowdfunding citizen journalism in Cairo. Mosireen, a media collective in downtown Cairo that offers equipment and training to citizen journalists, was born out of the effort by activists to document the Egyptian revolution online.

2.) Crowdfunding helping California churches go solar. Churches in the United States are non-profit. Therefore, they aren’t eligible for investment tax credits (no federal funding is available to them), and this complicates the process of funding solar panels on their properties. So, some California churches have decided to use an unusual approach, crowdfunding.

3.) Is crowdfunding the documentary industry's cure for austerity? Crowdfunding can be a sustainable third way between dependence on public funding and corporate funding.

4.) Crowdfunding helps non-starters and re-livers ride again. Crowdfunding is not just for newcomers -- blasts from the past can also get a second life by leveraging the same kinds of direct-funding mechanisms.

5.) Can crowd funding replace a bank mortgage? Frustrated with the banks, a young couple is taking a novel approach to raising money: Recruiting donors via the web, promising to repay the 'loan' by giving to earmarked charities.

Image credit: Jonny White

Related:

• Crowdfunding musicians to play in your city
• Not Pfizer? No problem. You can fund science research too
• Crowdfunding sites want to help pay your medical bills
• Q&A: The Oatmeal's Matthew Inman talks crowdfunding, creativity
• A crowd-funding site for designers in Asia

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com