CROWDFUNDING: INNOVATIVE FINANCING SERVING ASSOCIATIONS IN MOROCCO

This article aims to shed light on an innovative, more creative, transparent and egalitarian way of financing, which is gradually having taking in place around the world. The purpose of this article is to review the definitions of crowdfunding, its origins, its principles and its possible financing methods. Also, to discuss the opportunities, the risks and the limits of this method of financing for the associations by relying on the experience and the inventory of the practice in France and in the United States of America but also in few countries in MENA's Middle East and North Africa region. This will undoubtedly enable us to adopt it and adapt it to our Moroccan context, particularly in the associative sector. Moroccan civil society associations, which find difficulty to access funding, could benefit from this new mode of dealing with the public and private financing crisis. It will also allow them to rethink about their ways of financing themselves and how to raise the funds needed to carry out their programs and actions. However, the absence of a legal framework in Morocco governing this method of financing, even if a draft law has been prepared and submitted to the competent authority, constitutes a real obstacle to the expansion and the use of this type of financing in the associative sector. Therefore, additional efforts are to be supplied and a real political and voluntarist will of public authorities is to set up, to create a legal framework for "Crowdfunding", as well as in its institutionalization and his evolution on the legislative plan. A benchmark for sharing international experiences and best practices on Crowdfunding, as well as, additional academic researchs are necessary to better understanding this issue and to examine aspects of the opportunity and risk recognition process in the associative sector. The originality and value of this article, consists on the fact that it provides us with a concrete, reliable, transparent and egalitarian way of thinking, based on the recognition? creativity of opportunity that could revolutionize the methods of financing Moroccan associations in civil society.