TheCorporateCounsel.net

If you haven’t heard of crowdfunding, you probably don’t do venture capital work. As noted in Wikipedia, “crowd funding (sometimes called crowd financing or crowd sourced capital) describes the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money and other resources together, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations. Crowdfunding occurs for any variety of purposes, from disaster relief to citizen journalism to artists seeking support from fans, to political campaigns, to funding a startup company or small business.”

Recently, the SBE Council sent this letter to Corp Fin to encourage the SEC to adopt a new “small offering safe harbor/regulation modification” to facilitate crowdfunding. [Pet peeve for me – when someone refers to the SEC as the “Security and Exchange Commission”.]

Finally, this article lists these nine crowding sites:

– KickStarter
– RocketHub
– Quirky
– Fundbreak
– CatWalkGenius
– Fans Next Door
– IndieGoGo
– CoFundos
– Profounder

As noted in the “Both Sides of the Table” Blog, one hot site is AngelList, which pairs start-ups with angel investors (and is operated by the same folks that write for Venture Hacks.

Study: The Rise of Social Shareholder Proposals

In this podcast, Heidi Welsh of the Sustainable Investments Institute analyzes the results from a recent forecast of the “social” side of proxy season from a report entitled “Proxy Preview 2011: Helping Foundations and Endowments Align Investment and Mission,” including:

– What is the Sustainable Investments Institute (Si2)?
– Why did Si2 and As You Sow jointly prepare this new shareholder proposal report?
– What were the report’s major findings?

More on our “Proxy Season Blog”

With the proxy season in full swing, we are posting new items regularly on our “Proxy Season Blog” for TheCorporateCounsel.net members. Members can sign up to get that blog pushed out to them via email whenever there is a new entry by simply inputting their email address on the left side of that blog. Here are some of the latest entries:

– Second Circuit Rules on MD&A Trend Disclosure Requirements
– 2011 Proxy Season Field Guide
– An Early Look at Social Issues Proposals
– More on “A Proxy Is Not A Vote and Why It Matters”
– Governance Proposals Face Various Challenges

– Broc Romanek