FORT COLLINS, Colorado, November 11, 2015. Community Funded (www.communityfunded.com) today announced that The Local Crowd (www.thelocalcrowd.com) has chosen Community Funded’s crowdfunding technology platform to provide better access to capital for rural businesses and organizations across America.

The Local Crowd, based in Laramie Wyoming, provides education and technology to help rural businesses and non-profits raise funds locally via online crowdfunding and to educate rural investors about crowdfunding.

“Rural communities must cultivate vibrant entrepreneurial cultures to remain economically healthy,” said Diane Wolverton, Co-Founder and CEO of The Local Crowd. “Access to early-stage capital is essential to supporting entrepreneurship in these areas and that’s what we do by galvanizing local investor support.”

“We examined several crowdfunding platforms,” said Kim Vincent, Co-Founder and COO of The Local Crowd. “Community Funded’s platform is the only one with the features we need to support local campaigns and extensive educational resources our clients need.”

The Local Crowd, with support the USDA, successfully tested its solutions with six communities in 2014. With additional support from the USDA, The Local Crowd is recruiting up to 30 rural economic development organizations nationwide to implement local crowdfunding.

“Community Funded is proud to partner with The Local Crowd,” said McCabe Callahan, Co-Founder and CEO of Community Funded. “Their track record of results means that together we can positively impact communities nationwide and that’s our mission as a company.”

About Community Funded

Community Funded (www.communityfunded.com) provides powerful yet easy-to-use crowd-fundraising solutions that help organizations achieve their development goals. We also offer education and training to ensure success. @communityfunded

About The Local Crowd

The Local Crowd (www.thelocalcrowd.com) combines crowdfunding technology with the Spirit of Community and the power of local investing to catalyze communities that invest in themselves. @TLCpower

LARAMIE, Wyoming, April 25, 2016. The Local Crowd (www.thelocalcrowd.com), a locally-focused crowdfunding platform, has selected four rural communities to serve as Demonstration Sites for a USDA funded research project.

The Local Crowd’s platform offers features and educational programs designed to help rural communities activate entrepreneurial ecosystems and spur local investment. The two-year USDA Small Business Innovation Research grant will support the launch of up to 30 Demonstration Sites, with the ultimate goal of commercializing a new tool that provides better access to capital for businesses and organizations across rural America.

The first four communities selected to be Demonstration Sites are: Bozeman, Montana; Laramie, Wyoming; Sedgwick County, Colorado and Teton Valley, Idaho.

“We are pleased to have such a strong group of dedicated and visionary communities coming in as our first group of Demonstration Sites,” said Diane Wolverton, Co-Founder and CEO of The Local Crowd. “During the review process, each community team submitted a vision statement about how being a Demonstration site would impact their community. These vision statements capsulized their commitment to stimulate ‘deep collaboration, innovation, local investing, entrepreneurial networks, and connectivity between businesses and the community.’ We are looking forward to great results from this dynamic team!”

The Demonstration Site communities recently began a nine-week online training program last week to orient them to the crowdfunding software and support successful implementation of the platform. The target date for launch within each of the communities is late summer. The Local Crowd is uses crowdfunding technology developed by Community Funded of Fort Collins, Colorado.

The Local Crowd plans to issue another Request For Proposals this summer inviting additional communities to apply to become Demonstration Sites. A downloadable a sample Request for Proposals is available at www.thelocalcrowd.com.

About The Local Crowd

The Local Crowd (www.thelocalcrowd.com) combines crowdfunding technology with the Spirit of Community and the power of local investing to catalyze communities that invest in themselves.

Twitter: @TLCpower

FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/thelocalcrowd/

About Community Funded

Community Funded (www.communityfunded.com) provides powerful yet easy-to-use crowd-fundraising solutions that help organizations achieve their development goals. We also offer education and training to ensure success. @communityfunded