Effective entrepreneurial narrative design in reward crowdfunding campaigns for social ventures

One of the most important challenges for social venture entrepreneurs is acquiring resources. Reward crowdfunding is considered a suitable tool for meeting the financing needs of social ventures, whose backers are particularly interested in firm ideas and core values rather than in collaterals or business plans. A strategic factor that is able to influence the outcome of crowdfunding campaigns is the entrepreneurial narrative. Very few scholars have examined the key factors that support a crowdfunding campaign, particularly those on reward-based crowdfunding platforms, and the effects of entrepreneurial narratives on investors’ decisions. Aiming to fill this research gap, this paper investigates how entrepreneurs in the technology industry describe their social ventures and projects on Eppela, an Italian reward-based crowdfunding platform. Thematic analysis was applied to detect the five following key factors of effective entrepreneurial narratives in reward-based crowdfunding campaigns for social ventures: 1) problem/need; 2) project; 3) product; 4) team; and 5) venture. Each key factor includes specific subfactors. Lexical data analysis was then performed to identify the following expected effects of the examined entrepreneurial narratives on potential investors, leading these investors to understand, trust, and approve the project proposal, and thus, finance the social venture’s project: 1) reassurance, 2) reliability, and 3) credibility. Based on these results, this study proposes an explanatory model about how to design effective entrepreneurial narratives to be presented to contribute as much as possible to the success of projects in crowdfunding platforms.

     

Lost in translation: A sociological study of the role of fundraisers in mediating gift giving in non-profit organisations

Recent years have seen a significant growth in the technical literature exploring charitable giving and fundraising. However, there is little empirical research on the actual workings of the fundraising process within non-profit organisations. In this paper, the day-to-day practice of fundraising is analysed from a sociological perspective that draws on the theories of the gift proposed by Mauss ( 1954 ), Titmuss ( 1970 ), and colleagues to propose an alternative, more complex giving model to strangers. Using qualitative data drawn from 44 interviews with fundraisers and their colleagues across 14 organisations, this study examines how fundraisers build and maintain long-term giving relationships with the individuals who provide financial support to non-profit organisations. Findings suggest that the primary gift giving relationship exists not between the giver and beneficiary but rather between the giver and fundraiser. The fundraiser, in this instance, actively employs tactics of reciprocity to both secure new gifts and ensure that givers continue to support their organisation. In doing so, fundraisers construct a narrative of the donor's imagined direct connection to the beneficiary and their “good gift”. Simultaneously, the fundraiser works with colleagues to construct the idea of the caring, connected, and sacrificial donor as a means to solicit their support in maintaining the continued gifting from these supporters. The paper concludes with a consideration of the ways in which these narrative constructions are incorporated into fundraising and organisational strategies; and two implications for perceptions of the role of philanthropy and fundraising.     

A thematic analysis of fundraiser characteristics in high-quality major donor fundraising relationships in US higher education

As nonprofits increasingly rely on large contributions, skillful major gift fundraisers are more important than ever. In contrast to the vast research on donor motivations, there are few examinations of fundraisers or fundraising relationships. This study responds to nonprofits' interest in understanding beneficial fundraising strategies and to the lack of empirical literature with the question: From the donor perspective, what characteristics do fundraisers demonstrate within high-quality major giving relationships? This exploratory, interview-based project used a codebook thematic analysis approach based on HEXACO personality theory to review participants' reflections about fundraisers. The 20 participating donors had given between USD$10,000 and USD$40 million to select colleges and universities in the US Midwest region. This study confirms much of what fundraisers believe to be important to major gift donors, with added nuance about the complex form of professionalism donors appreciate. The fundraiser characteristics show several dual emphases, including on field expertise and interpersonal acumen, attention to donor concerns and institutional interests, patience with the gift-making process and ability to facilitate its progression, and attention to ethical practice and empathetic interactions. The study shows the inner workings of the major giving relationship fundraising paradigm, reveals how societal perceptions of fundraisers are relevant for understanding donor preferences, and provides a framework for fundraisers to assess and enhance their interactions with major donors.     

Community-engaged philanthropy: The role of the fundraiser in building equitable communities

In recent years, fundraisers have become increasingly focused on major gift solicitation while donors have been making larger gifts to fewer organizations. As this trend continues, some have begun to question whether major organizations and/or wealthy individuals now have too much control over the work of nonprofits and the communities they serve. While it is true that major gifts are important and can made a noticeable, positive impact, in some cases community members might see their impact as intrusive. In situations such as this, what is the “best” course of action? How should fundraisers consider, balance, and address the perspectives and rights of their organization, donors, and community members? This paper creates a framework for fundraisers as they consider not only their responsibilities to their organization and constituents, but also their responsibilities for promoting equity within their community as a whole. This paper draws on the social-ecological model, as well as concepts from intersectionality, to explore how fundraisers can increase involvement from all community members in a nonprofit's work to create a participatory and community-engaged process, with a special focus on including those who are typically marginalized, rather than maintaining a hierarchical system of power. It also draws on the theories of rights-balanced fundraising ethics, community-centric fundraising, and other ethical frameworks of fundraising and public administration to compare what is being done by fundraisers to what should be done to encourage ethical practices in fundraising. The paper is supplemented by examples of the impact of implementing (or not implementing) community engagement in fundraising practices. This paper aims to create a community-engaged philanthropy framework for fundraisers as they consider not only their responsibilities to their organization and donors, but also their responsibilities for promoting equitable distributions of power within their community. This framework provides specific guidance for fundraisers as to how they can balance these multiple (and sometimes competing) responsibilities while also keeping ethics at the forefront of their actions. It demonstrates how, by taking a community-engaged approach to their work, fundraisers are able to bring about better long-term outcomes for their organization. Specifically, the framework considers: (1) To whom are fundraisers most responsible, and to whom should fundraisers be most responsible—their nonprofit, their donors, or those being served? (2) For what rights of community members must the fundraiser account when soliciting funds, and to what extent is the fundraiser responsible for upholding these rights? (3) In what ways can an invitation from a fundraiser to make a gift also invite some level of power or control over the organization's work? (4) To what extent do fundraisers have the responsibility to maintain an equitable power balance among their constituents, including donors and those served? (5) How can fundraisers help ensure that all community members are able to participate in the organization's work to extent that they are willing and able?     

Fundraising through the F2F: When the smile implies a rejection of the interaction

The objective of this study is to explore the effect of the intentional smile on social rejection in the F2F communication strategy of NGOs. Two studies analyze the effect of smiling on passerby conduct, as well as related influence mechanisms. First, 1,298 passersby were approached by two fundraisers, one male and one female; in half of their attempts to engage the passersby, the fundraisers approached with a friendly smile, whereas in the other half, they did not smile. Data were collected on the frequency of rejections and acceptances of contact with the fundraiser. Second, 1,157 approaches were made to analyze the effect of smiling on types of rejection. Results suggest that the likelihood of the interaction being accepted is greater with a smiling than a non‐smiling approach. Hostile rejections appear to be an effect of the positive impression smiling gives in a self‐interested setting. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.     

Understanding social influence in Facebook fundraising: Relationship strength,immediacy of needs,and number of donations

Crowdfunding through social media has presented challenges and opportunities for nonprofit and voluntary sector organizations. To better understand how organizations can harness the power of social media in fundraising, the current research examined the effects of different types of Facebook fundraising posts on donor engagement. Based on Social Impact Theory, three factors of social influence were investigated, including relationship strength with the fundraiser creator, immediacy or urgency of the fundraising need, and number of donations. An online experiment was conducted using samples recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk. A repeated measures test was performed to explore the effects of three social influence factors on perceived source credibility, feeling of social presence, attitude toward the post, and intention to click, share, and donate. Strongest main effects were found for immediacy of needs. Facebook fundraising posts for an urgent need generated much more positive responses than posts for a nonurgent need. Interaction effects were also found among three variables in perceived credibility and intention to click. Personal relevance and perceived risk moderated the effects of number of donations on intention to donate. Implications for nonprofit and voluntary sector organizations were discussed.     

Effects of attention and reliability on the performance of online medical crowdfunding projects: The moderating role of target amount

Medical crowdfunding platform helps numerous patients access enthusiastic donors and address financial difficulties, but many crowdfunding projects fail to reach their target amount. Thus, how a crowdfunding project can attract considerable donors is questionable. This study examines the effects of attention and reliability on the performance of online medical crowdfunding projects and how target amount changes such effects. Based on objective data of 1177 crowdfunding projects from 2016 to January 2018 in a large medical crowdfunding platform in China, we find that the project donor’s attention (the number of forwards and comments) and reliability (the number of dynamic updates, empirical users, and pictures) positively affect the medical crowdfunding performance of the projects. However, target amount weakens the positive effects of the number of forwards and comments in online medical crowdfunding projects. Therefore, project sponsors should set reasonable target fundraising amounts while showing attention and reliability to donors. Compared with previous research that mainly explores the influence of external factors on crowdfunding outcomes from the perspective of donors, this paper focuses on the internal project factors and explores the concerns and trustworthiness of crowdfunding projects, enriching the literature related to fundraising ability in the project.     

Using past contribution patterns to forecast fundraising outcomes in crowdfunding

The crowdfunding mechanism has proven to be a practical way of raising funds, especially with the widespread use of the Internet. However, one limitation of current crowdfunding platforms is that it is hard for creators and backers to anticipate the success of a campaign. This paper tackles this limitation. We take a two-pronged approach to building our forecasting model. First, we explore the nature and heterogeneity of contribution dynamics in crowdfunding campaigns and compare them across two natural groups (successful and unsuccessful campaigns). We then use insights generated from our exploratory analysis and draw upon the general laws of motion for stochastic processes in order to introduce a new dynamic model for predicting crowdfunding outcomes. Our model incorporates the history and dynamics of both the focal crowdfunding campaign and other campaigns for predicting outcomes. We compare our model to other parametric and semi-parametric benchmark models, and show substantial improvements.     

Researching the crowd: Implications on philanthropic crowdfunding and donor characteristics during a pandemic

New online forms of giving have appeared next to more traditional ways like door-to-door collections. One of these new forms is philanthropic crowdfunding: donation- and reward-based crowdfunding. Crowdfunding is a promising method for mobilising and recruiting donors who may be unreachable via traditional methods. We analysed online giving via crowdfunding, focusing on donor characteristics and giving behaviour before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our analysis comprises survey research (n = 2125) observing giving behaviour on an individual level for both donors and non-donors. Our contributions are twofold. First, we report on the characteristics of donors who give to crowdfunding sources and in relation to donors who give via a door-to-door (i.e., ‘traditional’) collection focusing on micro- rather than macro-level data. Second, we compare the giving behaviour via crowdfunding with references to door-to-door collections before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. We show that the percentage of individuals supporting crowdfunding did not increase between 2018 (11%) and 2020 (12%). Regarding the amount, donors donated 13% higher amounts in 2020, but the difference was not significant. Regarding the characteristics of donors, we find that social media has a substantive role in giving via crowdfunding irrespective of other personal markers such as age, education, income, and gender, while this is not relevant in the case of door-to-door collection. Moreover, most people give to crowdfunding projects that are connected to an acquaintance, which signals that familiarity with the person initiating the crowdfunding projects plays a role. We conclude that crowdfunding, relative to more traditional giving, focuses more on informal giving than formal giving. Such an understanding requires different strategies and stimuli to increase giving via crowdfunding.     

Four lessons learned: Employees' perceptions of fundraising via reward-based crowdfunding

An innovative way to support cultural institutions is through reward-based crowdfunding, an online funding mechanism for a specific project, which offers donors a reward for their donation. We explored employees' perceptions of crowdfunding and focused on the question: “How do employees of cultural institutions running a crowdfunding campaign perceive the use of crowdfunding to collect funds?” To answer this question, we focus on interpretive research using semi-structured interviews (n = 15) among Dutch cultural institutions' employees responsible for running the crowdfunding. We used earlier findings on psychological ownership to structure the interviews. Psychological ownership is the feeling that the project has become an employee's extension, and previous research linked it to success on the work floor. Our findings claim four lessons. First, crowdfunding is a full-time job and not an extra activity. Second, crowdfunding differs from traditional fundraising: it contains specific content-related tasks they do not perform as fundraisers. Third, crowdfunding asks for teamwork. While autonomy is valued, one employee should not be responsible for the campaign. Fourth, crowdfunding does not come naturally to all cultural institutions. This research provides a basis for further specification of crowdfunding and its implementation in the cultural sector.     

Back to school? What the voluntary sector can learn from the education sector

Almost unnoticed by the charitable sector as a whole, a quiet revolution has transformed educational fundraising over the last decade. From a minor and wholly owned subsidiary on the periphery of the industry, the education sector has become a highly professional and successful multinational, which in some respects is now the market leader. This paper argues that the whole of the charitable sector could benefit by taking a close look at the experience of educational fundraisers, and that such an examination could have profound repercussions in the way most fundraisers treat their donors and organise their operations. Specifically, it suggests that the nature of ‘relationship fundraising’ actually means that every donor must be treated as an individual by an individual fundraiser, irrespective of the size of their gift, and that the work of a fundraising department should not work towards merely giving the impression of such treatment.     

Applying a stakeholder management approach to ethics in charitable fundraising

While nonprofit accountability literature recognizes many stakeholders, even theoretically grounded approaches to fundraising ethics tend to focus more narrowly on donors, organizations, and their missions. This paper draws on business ethics scholarship by proposing a stakeholder management approach to ethics in fundraising. This approach foregrounds intentional examination of the multiple stakeholders in the fundraising process: the organization; its donors; current beneficiaries; the broader population within the issue; the fundraisers themselves; and the community. Following stakeholder theory, ethical fundraising activities must align with the charitable mission of the organization, and take into account the legitimate interests of those groups and individuals who can affect, or be affected by, its activities. The process of intentionally identifying, prioritizing, mapping claims, engaging with, and monitoring stakeholders offers fundraisers, nonprofit executives, and members of governing and advisory boards a pragmatic means of aligning fundraising efforts with the mission, values, and long-term strategy of their organizations.     

Online social network fundraising: Threats and potentialities

There has been a growth in online fundraising from crowdfunding apps, like GoFundMe, that propagate fundraising appeals on social networking sites. In the online space, these crowdfunding apps pose a potential threat to the traditional intermediation role of charities. The disintermediation threat is that donors choose crowdfunding intermediaries instead of charities to channel their giving. In this article, we discuss what makes crowdsourced fundraising effective and how charities can adapt to this new dynamic for more effective online fundraising emphasizing two key success factors: brand strength/reputation and managing the donor experience. In addition, we explain the advantages and disadvantages of social media fundraising and giving and propose ways charities can leverage their good reputations and public trust to stimulate reintermediation. Finally, we propose a landscape for future research based on model that emphases the fundraising campaign's ability to stimulate viral sharing within and between online social networks.     

Crowdfunding as a tool to support sustainability‐oriented initiatives: Preliminary insights into the role of product/service attributes

A common goal of current research seems to uncover whether crowdfunding (CF) could be considered an effective way to support sustainability‐oriented initiatives in securing funding, due to diverging results emerging from literature. We claim that the objective of proving whether CF may benefit sustainability‐oriented initiatives could be misplaced; rather, we deem more fruitful to understand how critical are some attributes of products/services pursued within CF campaigns to benefiting sustainability‐oriented initiatives and increasing their odds of success in CF. We focus on food‐related projects as in this sector, sustainability issues apply more than to any other human activities and construct a unique sample of food CF campaigns launched and ended in the European Economic Area countries on the world's most popular reward‐based CF platform, that is, Kickstarter. We identify campaigns with a sustainability orientation and perform an in‐depth qualitative analysis, which allows us to classify them into meaningful clusters and subclusters. Our research suggests that the emphasis on egoistic/self‐centered product attributes, rather than on altruistic/society‐centered attributes, is generally more crucial to facilitate CF support to sustainability‐oriented projects. However, the emphasis on altruistic/society‐centered attributes emerges to be more beneficial for initiatives specifically supporting local products. Our results also suggest that reward‐based CF is not suitable for sustainability‐oriented projects targeting disadvantaged individuals/groups. These results offer both theoretical and empirical contributions to the literature as well as practical implications.     

The final gift: targeting the potential charity legator

• Although legacy income is of enormous importance to many of the UK's fundraising charities, little reliable information exists to assist practitioners in targeting potential legators with appropriate messages. In particular, the motives for making a legacy gift and the differences between those doing so and the general supporter base are unknown. This makes segmentation and the subsequent development of strategy problematic.
• This exploratory study seeks to address these issues and compare the motives of individuals who support charities during their lifetime with the motives of individuals who, in addition, pledge a legacy. The authors conclude that fundraisers looking to increase legacy income should target their older supporters, particularly those in their mid to late 60s', as well as users of their services. The findings also suggest that communications to these groups should stress organizational performance and service quality commitments.

Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The future of Facebook fundraising

• Facebook is the world's largest social network, and charities are keen to create communities and engage with supporters there; yet few are using any of Facebook's tools to raise money effectively. On the basis of data from Facebook and JustGiving, we will learn how to prompt donors to share their donations, the pound value of a Facebook share, and how to generate the best value from shares. We will also reveal Facebook's best practices for community building, explore the trend for Timeline integration and underline the importance of mobile in the future for Facebook fundraising.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The antecedents and consequences of charitable donation heterogeneity on social media

This study claims that donating is a rational behavior that balances altruism and self‐interest; therefore, the frequency and magnitude of donating are picked as crucial criteria to classify different crowdfunders because both of them reflect the rationality of donating. This study identifies 6 clusters of crowdfunders and explores the antecedent variables of the typology based on self‐system theory, as well as reveals the social influence of different types of crowdfunders. Data of the crowdfunders (n = 13,868) were collected from “Micro Philanthropy,” a popular SNS crowdfunding platform for charity in China. Social Network Service (SNS) profile information such as network features, social interaction features, and the identity of users was found to be significantly related to the typology. Active donors and bounteous donors are more influential than other donors in absorbing the attention of SNS users and attracting new donors.     

Between a rock and a hard place: corporate elites in the context of religion and secularism in Turkey

Drawing on discourse analyses of 36 in-depth interviews with elite business people from Turkey, the study identifies the networking patterns of new and established business elites in the context of economic liberalization and socioreligious transformation of the country. Through a comparative analysis of the so-called secular and religious elite networks, we demonstrate the role of institutional actors such as the government, and identity networks, based on religion and place of birth in shaping the form and content of social networks among business elites in Turkey. In order to achieve this, we operationalize Bourdieu's notion of theory of practice and Granovetter's theory of social networks, illustrating the utility of combining these approaches in explicating the form and content of social networks in their situated contexts, in which power and divergent interests are negotiated.