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.
Link to Guide entry:
Return-Based Investments —> Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Investing and Crowdfunding