Natalia Khoma* Technologies of poliTical (socio-political) crowdsourcing and crowdfunding: world experience and steps towards implementation in ukraine Abstract: Technologies of  political (socio-political) crowdsourcing and crowdfunding are analysed as modern approaches to make political dialogue and provide transparency of authorities. Justification for their use in socio-political sphere is being argued. Reasons that validate the use of crowdsourcing and crowdfunding in policy as well as global and Ukrainian experience of their application are studied. The factors that affect the success of crowdsourcing and crowdfunding projects in political terms are identified. Keywords: socio-political (political) crowdsourcing; socio-political (political) crowdfunding; political investing; public; information and communication technologies. introduction Within the  recent years, the search for new effective technologies of  public interaction at all levels from the global to the local one takes place in political science. “From the model of co-operation we turn to the model of co-creation. Exchange of ideas and views to achieve the best results comes in the foreground” [Levin, 2012, p. 36]. The leading trend is intensi- fication of political discourse through its virtualization and the use of new information and communication technologies. torun international studies 2015, No. 1 (8), pp. 49-60 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12775/TIS.2015.005 * Ivan Franko National University of  Lviv  Institute of  Philosophy, Department  of Theory and History of Political Science; khoma.nata@gmail.com http://dx.doi.org/10.12775/TIS.2015.005 50 Natalia Khoma The term “political (socio-political) crowdsourcing” and “political (socio-political) crowdfunding” are new concepts of  political science. Their development has just begun. The difficulty in understanding of their essence lies in: 1) the lack of research unity in in- terpretation of basic concepts – crowdsourcing, crowdfunding; 2) the conceptual novelty of thel phenomena of socio-political crowdsourcing and their varieties; 3) still negligible em- pirical base to explore practice of crowdsourcing and crowdfunding mechanisms, especially in Ukrainian politics. At the same time, current political process is open to new technological mechanisms – organizational and financial one. The political practice of the recent years shows the commit- ment to the crowdsourcing and crowdfunding mechanisms, which, having started as a busi- ness mechanism, broadened the scope into the socio-political sphere. The importance of the study of the possibility of using use crowdsourcing and crowdfunding in politics is caused by the continual growth of  the  role of  public participation in  politics, and, consequently, the need to  clarify the modern mechanisms of  organization and activation of  community in its involvement in the political processes. The study of possibilities of crowdsourcing and crowdfunding application in politics is commenced to clarify new approaches, which help to solve the problem of the lack of human and financial resources for the implementation of socially important projects. political (socio-political) crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing today is increasingly used as a new method of public involvement in into the  political process. It  is  one of  mutual interpersonal formats. Crowdsourcing means at- tracting human capacity for joint decision on the certain issues or projects implementation. Thanks to  crowdsourcing, specific work is  implemented with joint efforts; planned idea is implemented by ordinary people – volunteers and and those who take interest in it. Crowdsourcing means: 1) “use of  collective intelligence and work of  volunteers for a variety of useful purposes, including commercial one” [Дoлгин, 2010, p. 39]; 2) “prob- lems transfer to  significant, often anonymous, amount of  individuals  – human crowd” (the Internet community) and involving of their assets, resources, knowledge or experience” [Hemer, 2011, p. 8]. So, crowdsourcing is a common intellectual work of a large number of  people unfamiliar to  each other on  a common task in  the  network environment. This is a new method of obtaining needed services, ideas or information by reference to the large number of different groups, often through the Internet. Crowdsourcing can be considered as  a  new format of  the  socio-political dialogue. Its key features are: 1) the lack of payment (occasionally – minimal remuneration) for the ex- ecutable function; 2) a  significant number of  volunteer performers in  the  project; 3) use of virtual networks that enable optimization of expenses for information search, collecting and processing, and allow to divide work into a number of components that unite a whole resembling mosaic. Certainly, crowdsourcing would not be possible without the Internet – just through a network, people can coordinate their actions, discuss ways to solve problems and voluntarily join the communities. Internet is used to create instruments that can adjust government policies. For example, “Arab Spring” motivated many activists and ordinary Internet users to the primary use of Twitter and Facebook to schedule the protest acts and spread revolutionary appeals against establishment of Egypt, Yemen and Libya. 51Technologies of political (socio-political) crowdsourcing and crowdfunding... Crowdsourcing in Ukraine just begins to root, having started with social projects like public acts of cleaning the city. In Ukraine, crowdsourcing is not yet amply exemplified in actions, but the relevant experience is rapidly acquired. For example: 1) ElectUA – project of monitoring violations during the parliamentary elections of 2012 as apolitical initiative to  draw public attention to  the  transparency of  voting. The  project was aimed to  attract volunteers to pinpoint the instances of violation of the proper procedures during the par- liamentary elections and visualization of the data on the virtual map; 2) “Chancellery hun- dred” as a volunteer project that arose during the events on the Maidan in winter 2014 and restored documents which the deposed regime tried to destroy; then documents of runaway oligarchs were started to be recovered and published. The reasons for which crowdsourcing is appropriate to be applied to politics, are the fol- lowing: 1) generation of  a large number of  new ideas (crowdsourcing provides much more insight, derived from ordinary Internet users. Getting new ideas allows for hoping for better proposals); 2) selected ideas will be more closely related to the community of followers (personal ideas will be useful to the target audience because it offers relevant data); 3) open methodology creates transparent and democratic system (users can see where certain ideas come from, which will help to increase their involvement and makes an additional support for the policy that is carried out). Political crowdsourcing is  useful and technologically justified in many socio-political dimensions  – from designing the  state constitution the implementation of  local projects. This provides still small, but slowly accumulating by international practice experience of such a practice of open cooperation. We select several successful crowdsourcing campaigns in politics. 1. Iceland, 2012. This is an interesting country to study experience of crowdsourcing in political practice for at least two reasons: 1) it is the only state in which crowd- sourcing technology has already been successfully applied to  the  development of the constitution; 2) crowdsourcing has become one of the ways out from the po- litical crisis that was the result of the hottest economic downturn of the country in 2008 [Kypoчкин, 2013, p. 80]. 2. Finland, 2012, launched crowdsourcing platform. Open Ministry was designed to create new bills by the public. If the bill, proposed by a citizen, gathers more than 50 thousand signatures, it is subject to parliamentary voting 3. The USA. Citizens do not publish their own bills, but they can communicate with the politicians using resource PopVox, where the bills, proposed in Congress, are placed on separate pages, giving voters the opportunity to leave their comments. This resource helps to establish communication between politicians and voters. Modern politicians are trying to find new ways of interacting with potential voters and the public in general. The main areas in which the use of crowdsourcing is justified to attract attention and promote political campaigns are the following: 1. Creation of political profile. examples: 1) the President of the USA, Barack Obama, cooperated with Artworks by creation crowdsourcing posters dedicated to increase working places; posters of three finalists were signed by the head of the state, de- signed for sale to raise funds for the further advancement of the project; 2) a can- didate to become a deputy of the Australian Parliament in 2013 K. Rudd worked 52 Natalia Khoma with crowdsourcing platform DesignCrowd to create some design of a pre-election slogan and a T-shirt. He selected the winner from more than four hundred drafts and really used the chosen idea for his campaign. 2. Providing power to people. Examples: 1) even in  “pre-crowdsourcing era” the  first Australian prime-minister, E. Barton, in 1901 initiated an international competi- tion to  create a  sketch of  the  Australian national flag; competition received more than 30 thousand proposals; 2) In 2010, the Government of India created design of  the  new Indian rupee using crowdsourcing. There were suggested more than 8 thousand drafts from participants from all over the country; the project has at- tracted global attention and rupee became a recognizable symbol in the world. 3. Aid to people in the crisis regions. Examples: 1) In South African Republic there was operating an crowdsourcing site Agang South Africa to help to rebuild the country that gained independence in 1994; the aim was to increase public influence on the election results; 2) a number of projects today (such as projects of the organization Italian coalition for civil rights and freedoms (Cild) and Chicas Ponderosas), that are aimed at finding ways to help those19 million people that in 2014 became refu- gees because of wars or persecutions) and the number of which increased sharply in 2015 (Syrians, Iraqis and Eritrean etc.). 4. Bills development. The examples are the  already mentioned experience of  Finland and Ireland. Iceland has became a political example of crowdsourcing in develop- ment of constitution draft. Its implementation passed through a number of steps: 1) Constitutional Committee of Iceland provides the public with an extensive re- port (700 pages) about the  state of  constitutional law in  the  country and pros- pects for its improvement; 2) at general elections there were elected 25 members of the Constitutional Assembly (non-partisan representatives from different regions of Iceland) – a special authority set up to design and improve the draft of the new constitution of  the  country [Gylfason 2012, p.  106-122]; 3) every week mem- bers of Constitutional Assembly placed on a special Internet portal new legislative proposals, which have come from citizens using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. All Assembly meeting were also broadcast on the Internet and were open for online citizen participation [Kypoчкин, 2013, p. 80]. Structures of the different levels, from global to local, come with crowdsourcing pro- jects. Thus, the UN in 2015 implemented the project “Beyond 2015” – a global initiative that aims to attract young people to solve social problems and inform the world political leaders of  what should be their priorities. Crowdsourcing model allowed young people from more than 80 countries to share ideas, discuss vital issues and their possible solutions. For three months period crowdsourcing project has collected over a thousand unique ide- as and received more than 27 thousand responses and comments; Internet community, which was embraced with this project, makes more than 16 million people from around the world. With crowdsourcing in many cities around the world there are implemented projects codenamed “smart city” (eng. Smart City). Today we are talking not just about expanding the range of electronic services but about merging them into a system of “smart city”, which organizes management thanks to  initiatives of  the  public, generated ideas, namely social and political crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing allows for actively promoting policies of open municipal government, through various portals, on  which public proposals are accumu- 53Technologies of political (socio-political) crowdsourcing and crowdfunding... lated. In the “smart city” every interested resident is not only a consumer of services but also the member of the decision-making to improve the quality of life. The availability of modern electronic services does not ensure public involvement in solving problems; instead the fo- cused crowdsourcing practices are aimed at generating collective idea. Successful implementation of  crowdsourcing projects in  politics depends on  several factors, including: – how clearly the  ultimate goal and planned incremental movement to  it  are defined. Crowdsourcing project should clearly declare its goal, the  way to  achieve it  and the role of project participants. Clear focus on the citizens as the main participants is required. At the beginning of the project implementation it is important to under- stand what the result will be: ideas, knowledge or experience; – communication quality after project launch. Crowdsourcing does not happen auto- matically once put into Network, but information about the political project is nec- essary to  be spread in all possible ways. Political crowdsourcing does not always attract attention; patience and perseverance in  making interest and involvement of participants are required; – simple technological solution of crowdsourcing project, making it accessible to ordi- nary users (simple user interface); – further permanent project management: moderating debates, questions, responses etc. And, in addition, specific additional tasks, such as: deleting abusive comments, “re- flection” on trolling attacks; all this are integral characteristics of Internet conversa- tions on political subjects; – right determination of the project duration, as crowdsourcing is not a permanent proj- ect on promoting certain political objectives. If there is  known that one can join the project within the outlined time (e.g. several weeks), it encourages people to get involved. However, there exist long-term projects – such as several months signatures collected for a petition. If the project is a long-term one, periodic publication of in- terim results of the project is necessary; – regular offline activities serving as the project support. This format of communication that helps to spread information about the project is an opportunity for participants to meet up with the organizers; – constant analysis and monitoring of the project during its implementation, and analy- sis of results after its completion. The results of the analysis, which testify to the ef- fectiveness of crowdsourcing campaigns, are certainly necessary to be published on- line for review by all interested participants and the public. Of course, there are a number of obstacles on the way to sustainability practices of po- litical crowdsourcing: – digital isolation of rather significant number of adults as political actors. Although the  number of  people integrated in  the  Network is  growing, to  organization of crowdsourcing projects there is advisable to add such opportunities to participate in the project that do not require the mandatory use of the Internet, namely, the of- fline events; – crowdsourcing is not the equivalent of democracy, opinion of the participant of any po- litical crowd-project is not, as a rule, the majority opinion. But crowdsourcing can be seen as part of democracy, for example, using the method of survey. The importance 54 Natalia Khoma of crowdsourcing for citizens is that it becomes a new tool for socio-political activity and lobbying of socio-political interest of society; – crowdsourcing does not change the  opinion of  experts. However, depending on  the topic, public opinion can be equated to an expert opinion, though it can be minor; – political crowdsourcing requires technical and human resources. However, not all crowd- sourcing projects always require presence of the new technical solutions as there are a lot of software and free tools like Twitter or Facebook; – the problem of attracting participants. Usually citizens learn about crowdsourcing and get involved in it not unexpectedly. As political crowdsourcing is new and unfamil- iar process for most of  them, it  is necessary to  pay special attention to  work with the community and promotion of crowdsourcing opportunities; – socio-political crowdsourcing is  facing a  difficult challenge: how to  integrate the  views of  people into the  final decision  – whether the  proposal of  the  bill, or the strategy of the country (region, city). There is a danger that crowdsourcing will only become a  policy tool to  attract attention. That is, crowdsourcing may stop performing its function and stop motivating people so that unfortuntely people’s involvement in the future might possibly decrease. Particular importance of  crowdsourcing technology lies in forming active political community and ensuring the transparency of political decision-making. Crowdsourcing al- lows not only achieving a high degree of public participation in the development of certain projects, but also creating a sense of national unity. Free participation of citizens in the de- velopment and policy making allows for avoiding pressure of the interest groups that usually have privileged position in the legislative process. political (socio-political) crowdfunding Among the  definitions of  crowdfunding there is  its interpretation as  a  process of  uniting the resources, especially financial, for implementation of a specific project. We define it as voluntary collective cooperation of unspecified range of people who unite material or non- material resources, typically using the  Internet-platforms, for socio-political support (or a  purely political) projects, initiated by individual or collective political actors. If we try to define crowdfunding through legislation, we are faced with the problem of legal gaps – particularly in  the  Ukrainian legislation the  concept of  “crowdfunding” (or national syn- onyms) is missing. And this is despite the functioning of many crowdfunding platforms. When we talk about crowdfunding, first of all we separate thousands of socially useful projects, creative products that come to  the  market thanks to  donations from the  public, who believed in  initiatives of social usefulness, which needs support to  be implemented. That is, in the public mind there exists perception of crowdfunding as an economic mecha- nism – a “crowd funding”. Socio-political crowdfunding enables the transformation of  “social capital, accumu- lated in social networks, into the financial one” [Koтeнкo, 2014, p. 141]. Political crowdfunding is one of the innovative social technologies. Its important fea- ture is lack of traditional intermediaries in financing: investor cooperates directly with the re- cipient. The  uniqueness of  crowdfunding is  that this funding instrument, using Internet 55Technologies of political (socio-political) crowdsourcing and crowdfunding... technologies, allows for the quick acquisition of small investments from a large number of people to support the project. Rate of  political crowdfunding, as  an  effective tool of  capital involving, increases. Thanks to the rapid development of information technology, new attractive financing op- portunities became available for the policy investors. Funding is provided through Internet platforms. Examples include the following sources: kickstarter.com, indiegogo.com, seedrs.com, boomstarter.ru, crowdcube.com, smartmarket. net, EquityNet.com, betterplace.org, respekt.net and others. The  rapid development of  national financing is  provided with the  social net- works (Twitter, Facebook, “VKontakte” etc.), which can, rather quickly promote attracting investments into specific projects. In a situation a given politician (Ukrainian in particular) is often rightly accused of dishonet funding sources and further dependance on the “political patrons” – oligarchs, crowdfunding has the  potential to  become an  alternative format of  political projects fi- nancing. The Russian politician Ilia Ponomaryov (the only member of  the  State Duma of the Russian Federation, who voted against Crimea annexing to Russia) expressed an opin- ion that “worldwide crowdfunding starts from policy”. Undoubtedly, his words make sense. For example, “March of millions” in Russia gathered over 2 million RUB with crowdfund- ing. We support the approach on according to which policy should begin with crowdfund- ing, and not vice versa [Гoлeмбioвcькa, 2015]: virtuous politics has to start with crowd- funding, which will become a proper marker of the fact whether the public supports specific political initiative and is ready to contribute to its implementation. In business, we can speak of  at least three types of  crowdfunding, depending on  the remuneration, offered to the investor: 1) free or conditionally free of charge; 2) condition- ally returned; 3) certainly returned (private investment). When talking about the political (socio-political) crowdfunding, political crowdfunding can be divided into types by at least three criteria: 1) by financing sphere: electoral, anti-corruption etc.; 2) by nature of donations: financial (cash), social (non-cash); 3) by reward offered to crowd-investor: free (conditionally free of charge) – provides possible gratitude by the recipient, marking the investor (donor), for example, on  the site, in  speeches to  the  voters, opportunity to  participate in  activities initiated by the political party; conditionally returned – suggests that in future there will be performed some exchange for the investor’s support, for example, lobbying for the interests of the investor, inclusion of him or his representatives into the electoral list, etc. Generally, all types of  political crowdfunding are directly related to  information and communication revolution. In particular, social (non-cash) political crowdfunding works primarily in social networks. Nobody spends funds to support activist, but makes it known with likes and reposts. With this technology a number of  contemporary figures, such as Italian politician Beppe Grillo, become Facebook “stars”, and then politicians and promi- nent figures. In the countries with developed democracy crowdfunding has demonstrated effective- ness in the political sphere as it combines attracting financing and conducting a campaign. An appeal to entire groups of voters by making crowdfunding create a community of people is inspired by the same promise that seeks to support political project financially. Money has always played an important role in designing policies, but today more than 90% of  candidates in  the  West win the  election thanks to  attracting more funds. With electoral crowdfunding the  voters can collect more than 80% of  the  campaign budget. 56 Natalia Khoma Crowdfunding helps to avoid excessive costs of launching the campaign, such as huge bills for rent, telephone calls, travel, etc. Organisation of crowdfunding campaign is nearly free of charge and political leaders get a  list of  investors who supported them as  a  project. This database can be used during the subsequent campaigns. Obviously, sponsors of political campaigns are likely to vote for the sponsored political force and, in addition, will share information about it within their environment. Since 2007 political crowdfunding has helped Barack Obama to  collect 16.1 billion dollars [Швaльц, 2007]. In particular, in  2008 the  strategy of  the  presidential election of  Barack Obama was based on the use of his own website to  attract funding; Obama’s campaign collected more than 750 million dollars from the multiple retail investors (average investment was $ 86 per person) [Швaльц, 2007]. This strategy has received public atten- tion and was repeatedly resorted to by other players of the political arena. During the  presidential campaign (2012) candidates have already actively used mo- bile payment platforms though not as much as during current campaign 2016. Barack Obama included online payment platform Square into instruments in  his election cam- paign in  January 2012, and earlier, in  August 2011, the  Republican Party has distributed more than five thousand readers of Square during the National Congress. The exact figure of the accepted donations was not invoked, but there existed comments that using Square to receive donations by Republicans and Democrats was successful [Шepмaн, 2015]. During the presidential campaign of 2016 in the US many ways were used to collect donations. For example, to collect donations all US presidential candidates, from H. Clinton and B. Sanders to R. Paul and M. Rubio, use online payment platform Stripe. The presiden- tial campaign of 2016 shows a high level of candidates’ involvement in modern technologies. H.Clinton campaign, according to «Forbes» as of August 2015, has already received dona- tions more than $ 20 million through Stripe [Шepмaн, 2015]. Organization “The Center for Public Integrity” conducted a study the results of which show in  which countries organizers of  crowdfunding fundraising campaigns for Barack Obama received diplomatic posts. The results of the project have shown a significant cor- relation between high finance and the most desired positions in the diplomatic corps; diplo- matic posts are received not only by the diplomats but organizers of campaigns of collecting funds. This practice is not unique to Barack Obama; it has existed around for decades. History of  crowdfunding in  the  USA and Western European countries confirms the theory of solidarity. Public financing was developed here through projects that did not offer the investors packages or shares in any of the enterprises or any future payment of in- troduced shares. Instead, investors were given awards, often in the form of the final product or reference and public thanks [Koтeнкo, 2014, p. 141]. In the West, where the tradition of political patronage (political investment) is strong, one can see modification of political crowdfunding: now more and more “small” sponsors are involved in the financing of large undertakings. The potential of the Internet community today is obvious and powerful political players have to reckon with it.  To illustrate the use of crowdfunding method at the post-soviet area there can be invoked a campaign of collecting means for the project “RosPil” (http://rospil.info/) of O. Navalny, fundraising by Moscow Helsinki Group, fundraising to  support “Pussy Riot” and others. The trend of supporting the organizers of, at first, protests, such as “March of Discordants” (Russian Federation) became more clear. Under the pressure of authorities there always arise 57Technologies of political (socio-political) crowdsourcing and crowdfunding... such mechanisms of political struggle that cannot be controlled by the authorities. Opposition began to use political crowdfunding (its online format) to finance their projects. For example, O. Navalny organized “RosPil” to combat abuse in the sphere of public purchases; collected funds were spent on the services provided by the lawyers and on the server itself. O. Navalny was supported by a  number of  active Internet users with the users with opposite political beliefs. Meanwhile, the lagging nature of Russian political culture that is not adapted to in- novative mechanisms of  political cooperation is  underlined by the  researcher O. Sokolov [2014, p. 36]. He argues: 78% of funds in support of punk band “Pussy Riot” was collected not in Russia, but abroad. At present, socio-political crowdfunding in  Ukraine is  only beginning to  develop. The  potential of fundraising mechanism is not adequately exploited. Among domestic crowdfunding platforms are to  be noted the  following: “Spilnokosht” (https://biggggidea. com/); “Ukrainian Philanthropic Marketplace” (https://ubb.org.ua/); «Na-Starte» (http:// na-starte.com/ua/); «JQ Star» (http://jqstar.com/). One of the research objectives is to study their practices to determine whether these platforms implemented the political projects and how successful they were. It looks like the absence of political projects themselves is clearly seen at all the crowdfunding platforms. Let’s analyze this thesis using the example of  two major Ukrainian crowd-platforms: – platform “Spilnokosht” highlights such project-groups as “Media”, “Human Rights”, “Professional Journey”, “Children”, “Transport”, “City” and many others. To draw attention to the projects, supported by the public, the project assumes there will be Urban Studies, support of  camps, summer schools for teens, cultural projects and support of  separate creative teams etc. There are no politically oriented projects; close to  the  socio-political topics can be considered support of  public radio and television, programs of adaptation of internally displaced persons, “Sh.Fest – Taras Shevchenko Festival” (popularization of  T.Shevchenko), integration camp “Big Game for TEENS” (for teens from different regions of Ukraine to master leadership skills) and similar (social rather than political) projects; – platform “Ukrainian Philanthropic Marketplace” has no political projects, instead there are singled out projects “Help UA” (restoration of schools in the ATO area, rehabilitation of  soldiers, etc.), “Health” (patients support), “Education” (books for schools of  Donbass, furniture for rural schools, school uniforms for children of  immigrants, organizing so called “scientific picnics”, support of  children with mental, emotional and behavioural disorders, inclusive education), “Environment and Animals” (aid for animal shelters), “Our Town” (lunch for children from poor families), “Like home...” (food and hygiene for evacuees from the  ATO area, care of orphans, children from boarding schools etc.). Instead, in Ukrainian political practice there are the examples of electoral crowdfunding. Thus, O. Bogomolets collected funds as a candidate for the post of the President of Ukraine: “My only sponsor is  the Ukrainian people. Money for pledge was collected by volunteers and ordinary citizens” [Бoгoмoлeць, 2014]. Fundraising on pledge to the Central Election Committee (2.5 million UAH) was completed in  two days. From 08.04 to  21.04.2014 Election fund collected 181 495 UAH. One of  the  candidates for president of  Ukraine A. Grytsenko used crowdfunding practice at the election in 2014; cost amounted to 8 mil- lion UAH. With crowdfunding Ukrainian political party “Democratic Alliance” is function- ing. 58 Natalia Khoma It seems that in  Ukraine attitude to  national funding policy is  still quite sceptical. Firstly, the public has doubts whether fundraising is not one more fraud, whether the col- lected funds will be used to  implement the  declared goal. Absence of  legislation becomes a significant “negative” factor, because the citizen, as a political investor, needs effective pro- tection against the financial crimes. If you analyse such subjects of national policy as political parties, at present they appear to be attractive objects of political investment. Traditional parties cannot rely on ordinary participants in online crowdfunding – active users of social networks who are eager to sup- port, anti-government protest initiatives. Over the past two years of Ukrainian history we have seen many examples of collective financing such as the army, volunteer battalions, treating soldiers etc. It is notable, that this technology is  effective, and therefore the  question of  policy-testing, namely to  nominate candidates “from the bottom”, to support their campaign and then delegate the voting pow- er to them. So the politician, to be really from public, should be nominated by people; and not only to be promoted but also to be financed [Гopoбeц, 2015] (primaries, donations, charitable contributions, etc.). Otherwise, we cannot demand independence of the candi- date as the campaign will certainly be financed from some “oligarchic pockets” or by the can- didate, who is an oligarch himself. In this way competition of  politicians as  the  project, their struggle-presentation for the  national funding is  made possible. We  assume that this is  a civilized transparent way to win the most reasonable political projects. Each crowdfunding project, particularly politi- cal one (when every politician is under the “anti-corruption eye”), should be based on en- suring complete transparency at every stage of fundraising, opportunities for free access (if not of  all the  public, then at least donors and authorized regulatory agencies) to  monitor incomes and expenses. Research on of  political crowdfunding brings us to  a  number of  issues, including: 1)  whether political crowdfunding is  to be considered a  fundraising exclusively through specialized Internet platform. Ukrainians remember well the variety of ways of accumulating resources (money, medicine, food, fuel, etc.) in support of Euromaidan; how resources are still collected to finance the needs of the army today, etc.; 2) whether political crowdfund- ing should be materialized in its form as support can be shown not only in cash; at least we already mentioned non-material (social) crowdfunding. However, it should be noted that methods of financing Euromaidan and army in fact cannot be considered crowdfunding technology in its classic sense because of the violation of the basic principles of crowdfunding: goal – rather abstract, no clear required amount, process transparency – more fragmented. In this case we rather deal with charity, but such measures can be considered a successful start of crowdfunding implementation in Ukraine. Unfortunately, the culture of mass patronage, in particular socio-political one, has not acquired permanent bases, among Ukrainians and there was not formed stable middle class, which is  the driving force of  dedicated support of  any creative endeavours. To our mind, popularity of crowdfunding is directly correlated with the size of the middle class. Use of po- litical crowdfunding is still a prerogative of business entities. Political actors of the system itself nearly do not use this mechanism of communication with their political supporters. 59Technologies of political (socio-political) crowdsourcing and crowdfunding... conclusion At the  time, technology of  socio-political crowdsourcing and crowdfunding in  Ukrainian format is quite unusual and unresolved with regulatory instruments, but considering posi- tive global practice, they have the potential to become the norm of promoting political ideas at all levels. Citizens want to exert influence on politics and many of them are ready to use digital tools for this. Technologies of political crowdsourcing and crowdfunding create new opportunities for civic activity. This is a truly revolutionary approach to achieve the goal – to build a community in which everyone can be heard. Application of these technologies in the political sphere is a global technological trend by which transparency of state bodies, public involvement in the process of political commu- nication and work on socially significant tasks, which really can improve the quality of life of the citizens, are all improved. New technologies can enable truly democratic policy imple- mentation at all levels. Difficulties in  implementing of  such proven with international practice experience in Ukrainian environment is complicated by the fact that crowdsourcing and crowdfund- ing philosophy is based on mutual responsibility, social participation and a solid belief that everyone can change something in this world, and joint efforts approximate the achievement of the goal. Real practice of political crowdsourcing and crowdfunding is directly correlated, in our opinion, with indicators of social funds – both the individual and collective ones. references Гoлeмбioвcькa A. (2015). 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