According to wikipedia, crowd funding is "the collective effort of individuals who network and pool their resources, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations".
Let's take some recent examples:
- from Canada to United Nations: the Mobile Giving Foundation Canada (MGFC), in collaboration with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), has announced that donors can now make a monthly recurring donation of CAD 5.00 via text message to help feed a hungry child for a month. The amount donated by text is charged to the donor's mobile phone bill and is billed as a tax-exempt transaction. The mobile carriers remit 100 percent of the funds collected.
- from UN to Mali: The WFP announced recently that it has started to use mobile money in Niger as a way to distribute its money to reach the poorest and enable them to purchase food at local markets. The eligible recipients of the WFP cash distribution in Niger were given a mobile phone with an Orange Niger SIM card. Over the next five months the recipients will receive the equivalent of USD 65 per month in mobile money. The recipients cited on the WFP website stated that they will use the money given to them to buy food in their local markets.