Crowd funding

Crowd funding or crowdfunding (alternately crowd financing, equity crowdfunding, or hyper funding) describes the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money and other resources together, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations. Crowd funding occurs for any variety of purposes, from disaster relief to citizen journalism to artists seeking support from fans, to political campaigns, to funding a startup company, movie  or small business or creating free software. Another aspect of crowd funding is tied into the JOBS Act which allows for a wider pool of smaller investors with fewer restrictions. The Act was signed into law by President Obama on April 5, 2012. The SEC is going to have approximately 270 days from the enactment date to set forth specific rules and methods to ensure that funding will actually take place.