I have mixed feelings about crowd-funding in general, but I thought it was interesting to see that the trend of crowd-sourced fund-raising is starting to touch the sport of figure skating.
Like the story of this young skater from Maine, who is getting financial help with skating after a family friend set up a Go Fund Me for her.
Skating is an expensive sport. No wait, let me rephrase...skating is a VERY expensive sport. For young kids taking the sport seriously, between ice time, lessons, dresses, skates/blades, competition fees, travel expenses, and supplementary training, you may be easily looking at 5-figure sums per year here. My head spins when I think about what the heck I'm going to do if my daughter expresses an interest in doing it. (Breaking out in hives now...) So I can see how crowd-funding might be a great way to raise money to help the cause.
On the other hand, and this may all be in my head, I'm worried that it might creates a weird sense of entitlement for a young skater, and expectation that you can just always ask other people to shoulder the costs. And crowd-funding isn't always a surefire or reliable pursuit.
I know the story of the young skater profiled above is a happy one, but what happens when everyone starts doing it?
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