Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Investing and Crowdfunding facilitates direct financial investments among individuals or organizations bypassing traditional financial institutions. Peer-to-Peer can be described as formal and informal financial transfers between and within countries that are targeted for sustainable development. Peer-to-Peer transactions are generally technology-based transfers between individuals and one form, “P2P lending” can be defined as: “the borrowing and lending of money between individuals or businesses, usually through the medium of online services, without a bank or other official financial institution acting as an intermediary.” (Lexico, Accessed January 10th, 2020). Crowdfunding involves sourcing small donations or investments from a large number of people (the crowd) and is a form of P2P investing. Some for-profit P2P investing platforms include Lending Club, Upstart and Funding Circle. Well-known actors in the non-profit area include Kiva, Kickstarter, and Go Fund Me. In the realm of conservation finance, a good example is WWF Hong Kong’s crowdfunding page. Where the entire objective of the P2P or crowdfunding is in the form of a gift or donation, this mechanism would fit into the “Grants and other Transfers” category although it is included in the taxonomy in this section. Another example of crowdfunding for conservation is the Palau National Marine Sanctuary supported by the “Stand with Palau” crowdfunding campaign. In 2014, the campaign raised $53,000 from more than 400 donors to support the Marine Sanctuary’s implementation.
Crowdfunding
The practice of securing funding for a project or business venture by a dispersed group of people: the crowd. It takes places via online platforms that connect the investor or the donor with the project owner without the intermediation of a financial organization. Different platforms coexist: reward-based where individuals support campaigns and receive some kind of reward in return; donation-based where there is no expectation to receive a tangible benefit; equity-based where individuals invest and receive equity-like shares in return; and lending-based where individuals lend money and expect the repayment of a principal with or without interest.
Many crowdfunding websites provide a platform to crowdfund for biodiversity conservation, with thousands of US$ raised for a variety of projects both terrestrial and marine. Chuffed is just one of many examples.