Indiegogo launched a number of exciting initiatives in 2021 to help entrepreneurs and creators deliver on their promises to backers and create campaigns that our community will love. While Indiegogo has always aimed to support campaigners in hitting their goals and helping backers, 2021 is the year we really kicked it up a notch. That’s why we’re dubbing 2021 The Year of the Backer – because when entrepreneurs and creators are supported, it helps the entire Indiegogo community have a better experience on our platform. Below you’ll see five of our top initiatives this year. 

We enhanced Trust and Safety Measures with new programs and a Crowdfunding Trust Alliance with GoFundMe

Community and trust are the foundation of crowdfunding. And, to be candid, Indiegogo hasn’t always lived up to our backers’ expectations. Matching the ethos of the late 2000s, Indiegogo was founded as an open platform where anyone could raise money for almost anything, with little restriction. But “open” is not what our community wants. So this year we launched a number of initiatives that put community and trust at the heart of everything we do. We overhauled and expanded our Trust & Safety team with an eye toward the ultimate goal of being able to proactively vet the thousands of campaigns live on our platform every day. We created an Internal Review Board to oversee our most impactful Trust decisions and ensure that we’re keeping our backer’s interests in mind at all times. We launched The Guidepost Program, which will help us ensure entrepreneurs only launch on Indiegogo when they have a viable plan to deliver. And, finally, we partnered with GoFundMe to co-found the Crowdfunding Trust Alliance to share best practices and collaborate on safety measures. Together we’re going to use these initiatives to catch small issues before they become big problems.  

We rebooted Go Time,  Indiegogo’s official podcast

For years, Indiegogo had a podcast that helped entrepreneurs understand how to build a community, raise funds, communicate with backers, and more, but it had been a long time since the popular podcast put out a new episode. In 2021, we knew it was time to bring it back. It was, in essence, go time for Go Time, and the official Indiegogo podcast reboot was off with a bang. Our hosts Adeeti Goswami and Stacy Bradford have been giving entrepreneurs hands-on guidance at Indiegogo for years. Adeeti is Indiegogo’s Manager of Hardware and Design and Stacy is Indiegogo’s Senior Hardware Manager, and together they’ve worked on thousands of Indiegogo campaigns that raised millions of dollars in backer funding. They’ve navigated every type of campaign to success, and now they’ve brought their expertise to a wider audience to help entrepreneurs deliver the best possible experience to their backers. Through a series of frank conversations and exclusive one-on-one interviews, Adeeti and Stacy talk entrepreneurs through what works — and what doesn’t. You can listen wherever you find your favorite podcasts or check it out here. 

We celebrated the five year anniversary of the Global Fast Track program

This year marks the five-year anniversary of the Global Fast Track Program in China, which helps China-based companies debut new products through crowdfunding. Since the program’s inception, products from China have raised over $300 million on Indiegogo, and forty campaigns raised at least $1 million. Many of Asia’s biggest brands have been behind these launches and have used Indiegogo to introduce products, build communities, and getfeedback from backers in the global market. The Global Fast Track Program program saw 40% year-over-year growth in China in 2020, which was no small feat during the COVID-19 pandemic. To commemorate the successes of our program members, we held the Indiegogo 2021 GOGO Innovation Summit & Awards in Shenzhen, where we heard from thought leaders in the field and handed out Innovation Awards to the top campaigns of the year. Midea U-Shaped AC took home the award for best campaign of the year, Bluetti AC200 won for best new campaign, and Amazfit X won for community favorite. You can explore the full list of winners here.

We used Tips for Indiegogo to donate to causes that matter to our backer community

We technically launched Tips for Indiegogo at the end of 2020, but in 2021 the program gained enough momentum to make a big impact. Tips for Indiegogo allows you to add a tip to any of your Indiegogo contributions. We then donate a portion of those tips to various causes throughout the year. Every day on our platform, we witness what backers can accomplish and Tips for Indiegogo allows us to harness the power of the Indiegogo community to help those in need. In May, we used Tips for Indiegogo to make a $17,000 USD donation to Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus. In September, we donated a total of $6,800 USD to One Tree Planted and the American Forest Foundation. In November, we donated $4,000 to the American Immigration Council. We also donated 100% of the revenue from our March 15, 2021 newsletter to Stop AAPI Hate. We’re blown away by what backers like you are able to achieve and look forward to making a big difference from donations to this program in the future.

We expanded our international footprint by opening up the platform to 11 new countries

Crowdfunding breaks down borders. It connects backers with entrepreneurs from all over the world to bring new projects to life. Indiegogo prides itself on being a global platform, which is why we’re always expanding our international reach. In September, Indiegogo began to support even more countries on our platform. We welcomed entrepreneurs from eleven additional countries to launch crowdfunding campaigns in their local currency and make our global crowdfunding community more vibrant and diverse. Indiegogo now accepts crowdfunding campaigns from Poland, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Lithuania, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia, Slovakia, New Zealand, and Mexico. Indiegogo is dedicated to its role as a global platform for all creators and entrepreneurs, and in 2021 we were excited to welcome campaigns from more places around the world.

We teamed up with Amazon Launchpad to help entrepreneurs launch their businesses

In 2021 we began working with Amazon Launchpad to help successful Indiegogo campaigns become flourishing small businesses. Amazon Launchpad can help new brands, entrepreneurs, and startups overcome many of the challenges associated with launching new products by using Amazon Launchpad’s marketing tools, ecommerce expertise and unique benefits to increase visibility of their current products so they can focus their attention on new innovations, expansion, and what’s next for their business. Launchpad looks for disruptors, innovators and builders with differentiated products or interesting brand stories. Amazon Launchpad is now featured on the Indiegogo Experts Directory, and directs qualified Indiegogo campaigns to fill out a Launchpad application. By teaming up with Indiegogo, Amazon Launchpad can become the next step in the lifecycle for select Indiegogo campaigns. You can check out the Amazon Launchpad Indiegogo collection here. 

Indiegogo prides itself on being a platform where backers can have the best possible experience and we’re excited that 2021 allowed us to launch initiatives that furthered that goal and made 2021 The Year of the Backer. This was a busy year for Indiegogo and we can’t wait to hit the ground running in 2022 to build even more features and programs to help the Indiegogo community. 

WATCH our special Year in Review video where we take a look back at the Top 10 Crowdfunding Campaigns of 2021, along with a few honorable mentions. Did your favorites make the list?

Want to see the rest of our Year in Review? Take a look back at 2021 and read about the year’s top campaigns, what we learned about crowdfunding in 2021, and our predictions for 2022.