The Kickstarter Principle: Crowdfunding doesn’t work without transparency and trust:
Every now and then, there’s a truly heart-warming story about crowdfunding, like the case of the school-bus monitor who was tormented by kids on her bus and wound up with a windfall of $700,000. […] If you are going to appeal to the crowd for support, then you are essentially striking a bargain with them: they provide money, but you have to do more than just provide whatever the end product is. You have to be as open and transparent as possible and do whatever you can to maintain the trust of those supporters, and that changes the dynamics of the situation completely. And once that trust is lost, the game is effectively over.
Trust is key everywhere, the difference is that with crowdfunding, everybody will engage, and everybody will know, not just the few investors you’re directly pitching your idea to.