Crowdfunding: An Alternative to Funding Women Entrepreneurs

Abstract

Traditionally, Small businesses in Nigeria find it particularly difficult to fund their operations from formal sources. The situation becomes more challenging when women are involved because of cultural bias. Credit is rarely made available to women as many perceive a business run by women a big risk. Several government credit intervention programmes in the past were initiated but the problem of financing remained unsolved. Similar businesses in more developed economies are turning to innovative financing known as crowdfunding. The need to explore such a financing mechanism in Nigeria is the aim of this study. We employed a cross-sectional and retrospective mixed-methods approach, utilizing both quantitative and qualitative data. Findings from this study show that gender was not significant for understanding crowdfunding as a means of raising money from the public over the internet. This finding is very revealing as it shows that cultural barrier faced by women in accessing credit from traditional lenders will be solved by crowdfunding.