My latest and on-going self-help-with-YOUR-help Project is described as ‘inspirational” most often thus far. THAT itself is flattering, humbling and reassuring. It “inspired” this article, which first appeared on the blog of the platform, “Rock The Post” and they’ve granted me permission to re-post it here on “Achilliad”. In my life, I’ve seemed to always have been the one who would take the leap first when others in my group were hesitant for whatever reason. This is a “Guest Post”.

In case you have never heard the word crowdfounding/crowdsourcing before I will briefly provide a little context. It is a collective cooperation of people who decide to pool their money and other resources together to support efforts on other people’s projects.

Now that that is out of the way, do you know someone that is buried under a pile of bills? Could this someone possibly be you? Were you ever dealt a bad hand and are now suffering the aftermath effects? Dying to start or finish on a new project but lack proper funds? If you answered yes to any of these questions, crowdfunding just might be your solution.

Take Jimi Bruce for example. Jimi, is a veteran DJ radio personality who unfortunately lost everything after corporate restructuring. After an extended period of unemployment that spanned for almost 2 years, he accumulated many expenses and took a loan that made his finances take a turn for the worst. The loan had a 27% interest, which he was unaware of at the time of obtaining it and due to that bad decision and lack of income for 2 years, he found himself in over his head and in need of help.

Twenty months back, Jimi met THE love of his life, Ina a woman from the Ukraine, but she was forced to leave the US because of visa issues. Ever since then, Jimi has wracked his brain to find a way over there to meet her family and bring her back to the States. Having to re-invent himself as a middle aged man, Jimi had to learn new skills like how to use the internet and has successfully taken the first steps of getting back on track by landing a Social Media Coordinator job for a weekly Nashville newspaper. Unfortunately the salary doesn’t pay the rent, but it is better than nothing.

Currently Jimi’s love, Inna, resides in Eastern Europe, which really complicates their relationship.

He has been trying to get a loan since January 4, 2012 and has good credit score in the mid-600s, but from his point of view living in Tennessee hampers him from getting approved.

As a last resort and alternative option, Jimi turned to fundraising on Rock The Post so he can purchase a ticket to go see Inna and repay his loan in order to start a new chapter. As he explains on his post, once he raises the funds he will be marrying Inna, and they will be helping other people and couples who have struggled through similar situations reach their dreams.

His Fiancee Inna even used all of her savings to help Jimi get his first U.S. passport. As Jimi cites “As a man, I MUST pay her back .”

The money that Jimi will be raising will be used to:

Pay-off $1.900 loan;
Collect his soul/teammate Inna from Kiev;
Close on a house for him and Inna;
Relocate with a new job offer so they can build their life together in SF or near NYC;
Build/install Jimi’s i-net radio/voice-over/penmanship & phonics education business.

Jimi Bruce is a good example of how the magic of crowdfunding works. At the moment he has raised USD$ 218 from the USD$ 7,000 he is seeking. However, crowdfunding can not only be applied to causes, but also to businesses and individuals that would like to partner up from a money or resource perspective. Rock The Post is a good example of how the community comes together in order to make a dream become a reality.

***Rock The Post www.rockthepost.com is powered as a business social network site, serving as a bridge between entrepreneurs and/or talented parties and funding parties in order to take simple projects to the next level. We are a communication platform for business partnerships to form, and to become a place where projects, dreams, and passions become reality.

Comments

by sherman sterling ,founder on February 24, 2012 at 11:38 pm
I do thank you for the crowdfunding link up
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by Kiarie nyanjau on February 25, 2012 at 03:20 am
This cool Guys.
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by Peter Rouse on February 25, 2012 at 08:38 am
Crowdfunding and Crowdlending are undoubtedly of huge potential benefit to individuals and micro businesses. Banks are not interested in such ‘business’. Equity based crowdfunding is in place in the UK (www.crowdcube.com) and will hopefully be so in the US before long. Crowdlending is also in place (www.zopa.co.uk for example) in the UK. There are new banking entrants as well such as http://www.civilisedmoney.com. We need a new and better way of doing capitalism and crowdfunding/lending is one way we can achieve this.
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by Jimi Bruce on February 25, 2012 at 03:27 pm
I am blown-away with gratitude after reading this true and informative write-up over my afternoon tea. Thank You, Rock The Post! спасибо!
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by Sarah Barton-King on February 25, 2012 at 04:12 pm
Bravo….at last. This is exactly what we require to move our small (and I mean small) businesses forward. Banks refuse to even allow a ‘bridging loan’ to enable one to literally move step by step up the ladder to success. I hope we can make this happen here, and who knows, with small amounts, we can each help the other in the bracket to move onwards and upwards. I do hope that if we do go this route, we all remember to reward our ‘friends’ for the help they are going to give to us. Sarah xxxxx
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by Jason Scott on February 26, 2012 at 09:54 am
Thanks for the post. We are also looking into crowd funding for potential link ups from later to be successful businesses, musicians, and inventors. We have been making donations to Kiva.org, but they are straight donations for Karma.
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by Jim Thomas on February 26, 2012 at 04:42 pm
I’m all for altruism and helping folks out but calling an electronic way to pass the hat “crowd-funding” is a news-seeking gimmick that just clouds the waters. It’s not “funding”–it’s donating. Yes, there is a world of potential in common folk doing what banks and traditional lenders won’t do, but there’s a difference between a model of capitalism and a model of charity. This story is one of the latter and thus, the latest in sensationalist ways to mischaracterize and misinterpret the power of emerging technology.
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Jimi Bruce

by Jimi Bruce on February 27, 2012 at 05:06 pm
Hello, Mr. Thomas: I cannot sit idly by and let you rain upon my/our social funding/crowdfunding/crowdsourcing parade via semantics. One of the reasons that a man like me with youthful middle age, my health (so far thank the Creator) and a variety of useful experience gets marginalized to the edge of the abyss of indigence is that needless nit-picking and small-mindedness has gained in popularity for whatever reason, instead of us celebrating our commonalities. Look and see what other labels your words “donating ” and “charity” are in common with here: generosity, gift Synonyms: alms, alms-giving, assistance, benefaction, beneficence, contribution, dole, donation, endowment, fund, gifting, hand*, hand-out, helping hand, largesse, oblation, offering, philanthropy, relief, write-off . They are all what we all need in our lives: HELP.