PayPal has launched its own in-house crowdfunding service called Money Pools which, as the name might imply, allows you to pool (or collect) money from a group of people towards a particular goal. With Money Pools, users can specify a fundraising goal, and share a page describing the fundraiser with friends (or more widely). PayPal’s suggestion is that this could be used to plan group gifts, plan trips, for special events like baby showers or graduation presents, or to collect money for someone in need.
In all likelihood, the latter will be the most common type of Money Pool, as most of these crowd-funding type campaigns in the past have been to help people raise money for medical expenses or other crises. Like other fundraising pages, Money Pools can be shared by email, social media or messaging apps… or pretty much anywhere.
Payment is, of course, handled by PayPal, allowing users to collect funds from PayPal account holders, and pretty much anyone with a debit or credit card. Contributors can remain anonymous if they wish, and Money Pool organisers can specify what information they’d like to collect from users too.
Like other services, the person requesting the money only receives the funds from Money Pools if the fundraising goal is reached, though deadlines can be extended if things are looking likely to succeed with a bit more time.
