Crowdfunding named after Jawaharlal Nehru

The most famous campaign in the history of India’s crowdfunding

W12
W12.io
3 min readFeb 13, 2019

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The history of India is vibrant and amazing. In the 20th century, the country had its own unique milestones in the development of crowdfunding. They were the first to use videos to promote campaigns. That’s what the editors of W12 dug up in the archives.

1962 — Nehru and video advertising

The most ambitious campaign was launched by the first prime minister of independent India — Jawaharlal Nehru. In 1962, when the clash with China became inevitable, he appealed to his citizens to make their own contribution to victory.

To attract the attention of potential donors, Jawaharlal conducted a marketing campaign as he ordered a promotional video and showed it on television. Tens of thousands of people responded to the call. Among them were many women who donated jewelry and money to the Defense Fund of India. Without their help, the treasury of the country stood no chance in the war with the powerful neighbor. According to various estimates, Nehru collected more than $220,000 in cash and even more gold.

1976 — A film about farmers was financed by its own heroes.

Dr. Verghese Kurien was called the father of the white revolution and the milkman of India. By his efforts, Bharata became the world’s largest milk producer. And thus began a grand reform with crowdfunding. In order to draw attention to his idea and popularize it, Verghese ordered a documentary chronicle from director Shyam Benegal. The point was that all the changes in the lives of dairy farmers were to be recorded on film. Shyam requested 10 lakh for shooting and editing, or about a million rupees. The Doctor did not have such money. Then he asked all the cooperative trade unions of Gujarat whether their farmers would want to produce a film about them and show up in the credits. The donation would need to be at least 2 rupees from sale of milk in the morning. The money was successfully collected and the movie was named Mantharat or The Awakening.

As you can see from these stories, even Indian Prime Ministers have to do a lot of marketing work in order to conduct a successful fundraising campaign. Today, the W12 platform is radically changing the rules of the game for the first time with the help of blockchain and IT technologies by making crowdfunding more convenient and more attractive. We give creators and businessmen a launching pad, where they can raise funds for the realization of their wildest ideas without any initial expenses. The donors get certain guarantees. First, due to built-in escrow services. Secondly, due to the fact that all ongoing transactions are recorded in the blockchain, thus making the product creation process completely transparent.

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