Main Street Crowd Poised to Corner the Market on Local Crowdfunding

    ALBUQUERQUE, NM, December 19, 2013 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Main Street Crowd announced today the launch of the first of several pilot community networking sites within its comprehensive economic development platform. Their platform provides non-profit economic development organizations (chambers, business alliances, community development organizations, etc.) with their own local community networking sites at no cost. These sites, called "Clowdz" (the crowd in the cloud), enable communities to cultivate interested and connected local crowds and host crowdfunding projects themselves. This results in the lowest cost crowdfunding option in the market while providing revenue opportunities for the host. These Clowdz connect and network members, offer free listings to local professional service providers, and will soon provide online commercial loan applications and job boards.

The pilot Chamber site hosted by the Chamber of Commerce in Los Alamos, New Mexico is a collaborative effort of the programs under the leadership of the Los Alamos Commerce & Development Corporation including the Chamber, Los Alamos Main Street, the Visitors Bureau, the Research Park, and various business assistance services. In cooperation with students in an entrepreneurship course at the University of New Mexico, the Chamber site is hosting a number of local business development projects. Los Alamos National Laboratory announced that they will make a generous contribution to the "iShop Los Alamos" project by the Chamber.

According to Chamber Director Katy Korkos, the site will be an important piece in the local economic development puzzle going forward. "This will be a central place for the community to come to see and support community and business development projects in Los Alamos and have a real voice in making them happen."

Crowdfunding involves members of the "crowd" in a community each giving small contributions that collectively will fund a worthwhile project. Main Street Crowd Co-Founder Marshall Neel said "People invest in who they know and what they know. Our platform brings the wisdom of a local crowd to bear on local business development and quality-of-life community projects yet still has a national reach based on project affinities and an organic social network. Projects will no longer be lost in the crowd."

Chamber Nation, a national inter-connected network of Chambers of Commerce, has joined the Main Street Crowd Affiliate Program. This program allows associations to obtain discounts on Main Street Crowd services for their members. Chamber Nation is the company that can pull the pieces together to build and support Chamber membership, assist businesses in increasing revenue and providing the technology to build a strong local economy, including crowdfunding. The Los Alamos Chamber is a user of the Chamber Nation platform.

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