Last year I had a chance to visit Washington D.C. and tour the Washington Monument. I later learned that this magnificent national icon was, in fact, an early example of crowd funding. Crowd funding is the process of aggregating small amounts of money from a large number of people in order to accomplish great things.
It turns out that the construction of Washington Monument was crowd funded by small contributions from individuals across the country. Fund-raisers even placed donation boxes (like the one in the photo) next to ballot boxes on election day in 1860, when voters chose Illinois congressman Abraham Lincoln as president.
To read the full, original article click on this link: The Wisdom of the Crowd: Social Networking Meets Capital Formation | Xconomy
