Crowdfunding is often seen as a tool for improving access to finance for artists and creatives. Recently, it is also used as a tool for financing startups. The most interesting cases of Crowdfunding are, when the person giving the money does not primarily profit from the result of the Crowdfunding campaign - this was the case for instance when the citizens for Rotterdam came together to create the Luchtensingel, a Crowdfunded bridge. These cases of Civic Crowdfunding are interesting because they counteract the notion that Crowdfunding has to be all about personal benefits, perks and rewards. Place2Help has created a platform in Munich which allows these new civic projects to be realized.

Even more interesting, Corporate Crowdfunding is creating cases where large companies are using Crowdfunding as a tool for internal innovation, sometimes creating employee benefits as well. Crowdfunding is not used as a financing tool, but as a tool for game play and creativity. We will disuss this with David Heberling from the Berlin agency Table of Visions, which has created a number of internal crowdfunding platforms for large corporations.

In the talk, we will put these cases in contrast with radical ideas such as Bitnation, where you can join as a citizen and receive a passport - and which tries to build services for its "citizens" by being paid in Cryptocurrencies. Are networks like Bitnation a new type of civic institution that uses a cryptocurrency-crowdfunding approach? Or a new type of activist corporate?