Five crowdfunding sites in Indonesia

Brooklyn-based crowdfunding site Kickstarter has proven many times over that collecting funds from the public for creative projects can work. In crowdfunding, backers donate money to make a project or cause they admire come true. Some crowdfunding campaigns are based on a pre-order system, where the backer gets a product once it is completed and deliverable. Others are based on a system where the backer gets a gift or some form of other perk as reward for their contribution.

Kickstarter regularly releases statistics on the site’s performance, and the latest numbers released in February show that the platform successfully funded almost 84,000 projects and has collected over US$1.4 billion since its inception in 2009. Kickstarter projects have a 40 percent success rate. 101 projects raised more than US$1 million in funds each.

Can crowdfunding find similar success in Indonesia? Culturally, Indonesians are familiar with the “gotong royong” principle. Gotong royong means working together as a community. But today, Indonesia’s crowdfunding sites are still far removed from the volume and success of platforms like Kickstarter.

Though crowdfunding pioneers began testing the waters in Indonesia as early as 2011, some of those early movers like BursaIde are now inactive, or, like Patungan, even offline.

See: Overview of crowdfunding pioneers in Asia Pacific

Of the early movers, Wujudkan is still alive, and new ones have joined the ranks. But so far, it seems like the spirit of gotong royong has yet to find its way into this digital form of giving in Indonesia.

1. KitaBisa

This platform, which favors social projects, has been around since 2013. KitaBisa also allows other projects in the technology, creativity, and business categories. The crowdfunding site verifies each project before it is published. KitaBisa even requires the project initiator to send financial reports and status reports about their projects. As most crowdfunding platforms, its monetization strategy is to take a five percent cut from successfully funded projects.

In 2013, shortly after its launch, the site had announced it was aiming to kick off the site with a project targeted at IDR550 million (US$48,394) to set the bar high. But this project, it appears, never came to fruition.

The site now presents Momentum Pergerakan SaveMaster as its largest success story, which collected a total of IDR 137 million (US$10,600) to help save a school building which was supposed to be torn down.

2. Wujudkan