You might be overdue for a public appreciation ceremony and not even know it. In case you missed the memo (and you didn’t), we recently crossed the line of demarcation from the conventional to the unconventional, at least by older established standards. If you’ve responded to the needs of others in a more tangible or financial way through websites designed to play the matchmaker, you’ve unwittingly joined a chorus of people now numbering in the millions who are making a real difference.
We now live in an age of universality. Becoming less dependent on prior structures of access to needed resources, we are now plugged in, through the technology of the 21st century, with a system that has become the great equalizer. Among the many things that the internet has brought to this generation, perhaps the greatest is the new reality of reducing a once large world into a community that is universal in nature. Largely absent is a caste system that defined how we relate to one another, including how we do business with one another.
Businesses today have the ability to make their pitches direct to a targeted group of investors and clients or can cast a wide net as necessary to achieve corporate goals. Individuals who are in great need now have a microphone that speaks directly to the general population, often linked through the genius of social media. In days gone by, gatekeepers, whether they were bankers, investors, hedge fund managers, politicians, social relief organizations, etc., largely controlled streams of resources to those who believed they had a legitimate product or service to introduce to the world. Now, with computer, modem and creativity, people today have a platform that rivals the largest businesses to conduct business as never before.
To be certain, this new paradigm requires an extra level of vigilance and research to make sure that legitimate players are engaged in bona fide business activity, but the upside to today’s potential is enormous. Just a few examples of this new world reality can be found in areas such as crowdsourcing and crowdfunding.
Crowdfunding is the process of positioning financial need for personal or business purposes. For instance, one of the online fundraising sites, matches donors with people in within the general community need for almost no cost. Other crowdfunding sites focus on matching investors with business startups which has helped to break conventional wisdom for those who would otherwise have been iced out of obtaining needed startup capital.
Listen to this statement from Jillienne Helman, Founder and CEO of Realty Mogul:
“I am highly biased, as I am the CEO of a crowdfunding company, Realty Mogul, but I think crowdfunding is going to have wide impact in the real estate world. Historically real estate finance was dominated by the banks, hedge funds, private equity funds and the like. Crowdfunding will open that market up to local neighbors and allow people to invest in their own cities. “
A big “Thank You” to the public for participating and making a difference by helping others who could not have been helped in any other way. You are not only the future of our global community. You are the hopeful present. With 7 billion people on the planet, it would be impossible to connect legitimate donors and investors with legitimate recipients using conventional systems of the not so distant past. Whether you have been the sender or the receiver in the recent past, a reversal of fortunes could very well have the same actors exchanging places at any point along the future’s timeline.
