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.     

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.     

Impacts of news media coverage on Canadian medical crowdfunding campaigns

While donation-based crowdfunding for health-related purposes raises hundreds of millions of dollars yearly, most campaigns fail to meet their fundraising goals. Crowdfunding campaigners are advised to seek traditional news media coverage of their campaigns to increase donor interest and fundraising success. In this study, we seek to better understand what happens to donor behavior via donation-based crowdfunding campaigns after they receive news media coverage. While research has focused on the impact of social media sharing on donation-based crowdfunding, academic analyses of the impact of news media coverage is largely speculative. We searched the Newsstream and Factiva databases for Canadian news coverage of domestic donation-based health-related crowdfunding campaigns. This news coverage was paired with the crowdfunding campaign reported on in the story. Campaign text and daily fundraising totals and donor amounts were recorded for the 7 days before and after publication of the news article. The authors identified emergent patterns in this data around the amplification of personal information from the crowdfunding campaign to a wider audience and inclusion of new personal details. This process identified 17 relevant pairs of news stories and crowdfunding campaigns over a review period of just under 5 months in 2021–22. These campaigns raised a total of CAD$443,134 (median CAD$20,030) out of a total goal of CAD$772,500 (median CAD$40,000) or 57.4% of the requested funds. Median campaign donations and donor numbers increased for the 3 days following publication of the news article. Our exploratory analysis shows a relationship between crowdfunding campaigns that receive news media coverage and the numbers of donations and total amount donated shortly after this coverage. Campaigners may feel pressure to participate in news media coverage in order to reach their fundraising goals. Media coverage has implications for campaign recipient privacy and the equitable distribution of health-related funding. This exploratory analysis establishes the need for additional research on this topic.     

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.

     

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.     

Social identity and signalling success factors in online crowdfunding

Online crowdfunding means relying on the Internet to seek financial support from the general public. In this paper, we examine success factors in the social capital networks of the top 5000 most funded projects in Kickstarter.com at the time of this study. We first look at how fundraisers and backers identify themselves with the projects they support in their own social networks. This is modelled using Facebook friends and Facebook shares, respectively, guided by social identity theory. Secondly, we use signalling theory to investigate crowdfunding success based on backers’ and fundraisers’ ability to engage in a forum, modelled using the number of comments between them, or with unilateral signals using the number of updates from the fundraiser. This study suggests that funders and backers who identify themselves with the projects in their own social networks are associated with greater pledge/backer ratio. We also find that projects where the fundraiser and its backers exchange more signals in a joint forum, but not signals delivered unilaterally by the fundraiser, have a greater pledge/backer ratio. These findings, based on a scalable quantitative study, highlight the importance of a multi-theory approach, advance social identity theory and signalling theory in the context of crowdfunding, and could be applied to online and normal entrepreneurship environments alike.     

Million dollar personality: a systematic literature review on personality in crowdfunding

Expressed personality traits can play a pivotal role in convincing investors in crowdfunding. Our study answers the research question: What is the current body of knowledge regarding the relationship between personality factors and crowdfunding success and where are knowledge gaps where the literature is silent? In our literature review, we therefore analyze and categorize (1) the results provided by quantitative studies on the relationship between the personality of entrepreneurs and crowdfunding success and (2) the research gaps identified by the authors investigating personality in crowdfunding. We find that studies investigating the entrepreneur's personality, i.e. the Big Five, other baseline personality traits (self-efficacy, innovativeness, locus of control, and need for achievement) and the Dark Triad, find positive relationships between openness and crowdfunding success, while narcissism shows an inverted u-shaped relationship with crowdfunding success across articles. However, the effects of other personality traits on crowdfunding success are largely inconclusive. Further, we identify four main gaps in the literature. First, future studies should examine non-linear relationships between expressed personality traits and crowdfunding success. Second, there is a need for more studies that employ different methods like qualitative or mixed-method approaches. Third, replication studies in similar and different contexts are urgently needed. Fourth, a plurality of personality perspectives would strengthen future research (e.g., investor perspective, third party perspective). To our knowledge this is the first literature review of personality traits in crowdfunding. Our work aims to enrich our understanding of individual-level components in the underexplored alternative finance market.

     

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.     

Financial return crowdfunding: literature review and bibliometric analysis

In the FinTech era, other technological enterprises different from traditional banking are offering financial services (Zalan and Toufaily Zalan et al. Contemporary Economics, 11(4), 2017). Crowdfunding is a materialization of the evolution of entrepreneurial finance, permitting the raising of funds from a crowd of investors through online platforms. Crowdfunding is a rather new phenomenon, so literature is still incipient. This research aims to study crowdfunding as a financial instrument. For this reason, we will focus specifically on crowdfunding that generates a financial return- i.e., peer-to-peer lending (P2P) and equity crowdfunding (EC). This article looks into the documents published in the Tomson Reuters Web of Science on the field of financial return crowdfunding. Conclusions are drawn in terms of relevance of this burgeoning topic and suggestions for future research are put forward.     

Crowded but not crowded out: Comparing the solicitation strategies and outcomes of nonprofits' and individual's GoFundMe campaigns

There is a great deal of need in this world, and some are taking their plights directly to the public for help rather than approaching nonprofit organizations. This content analysis of GoFundMe solicitations compared a range of requests (n = 303) to document how similar the solicitation strategies of crowdfunding campaigns run by individuals are to those from nonprofit organizations. Results from this investigation helped address the uncertainties of the disintermediation of the nonprofit sector. Though disintermediation is real and actively taking place, results indicate that nonprofit organizations are in a healthy position to survive the disruption of crowdfunding while adapting, adopting and improving crowdfunding behaviors.     

Can platform competition support market segmentation? Network externalities versus matching efficiency in equity crowdfunding markets

We investigate whether, in spite of the existence of cross‐market network externalities, platform competition can lead to segmentation of the two sides of the market served by the platforms. We address this question in the context of competition between two equity crowdfunding platforms that connect startups looking for capital with prospective investors. Given the heterogeneity in the populations of startups and investors in terms of the riskiness of the former population and the degree of risk aversion of the latter population, we investigate whether there exists an equilibrium where the two populations are segmented to ensure an improved match between them. We find that the segmenting equilibrium can arise only when compatibility in terms of their risk profiles is of high importance to both populations, and compatibility is significantly more important than the size of the network externality considered by startups. Segmentation is likely to improve the welfare of both populations when the basic benefit from any kind of match is relatively high.     

互联网金融视角下股权众筹融资的投资风险探析

股权众筹是公司通过出让股份获得资金的一种融资方式,它的出现很大程度上解决了中小型企业融资难、融资贵的问题。但是近年来股权众筹的发展速度逐渐放缓,同时模式本身也暴露出了较高的投资风险。针对这些投资风险,论文从退出机制、外部审计和监管三个层面给出了相应的措施建议。     

Recasting the “middle man:” the role of charities in the age of disintermediation

The number of people donating to charities is declining at a time when technology is enabling a proliferation of new ways of offering support—from crowdfunding to hacking commercial platforms like AirBnB for novel purposes. There is a risk that charities could lose their traditional position as a trusted intermediary between individuals who want to help and people who need their support. This paper offers some suggestions as to why disintermediated giving may, in some situations, offer a more attractive donor experience than traditional charitable giving and suggests some possible areas for further study.     

A multi-level understanding of trust development in contexts of blurred organizational boundaries: the case of crowdfunding

Are trust development processes in settings of blurred organizational boundaries different from those in conventional organizational settings, and if so, how? Taking the crowdfunding campaigns of the Fin-Tech Monzo as examples of settings of blurred organizational boundaries, we analyze how the three main trust forms (individual, organizational, and institutional trust) emerge and interact in the campaigns’ online discourse and develop a process model that captures distinct trust development dynamics. We contribute to the trust literature by highlighting increased dynamics and co-existence of trust forms, and by showing that the validation of extra-organizational boundary spanners is crucial to compensate for a missing personal interaction in settings of blurred organizational boundaries. We also contribute to the crowdfunding literature and derive managerial implications.     

A systematic literature review of crowdfunding and sustainability: highlighting what really matters

Management Review Quarterly - This article systematically reviews literature at the intersection of crowdfunding and sustainability. It analyzes the extent to which the current research foci in...     

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.     

Managing knowledge through human resource practices: empirical examination on the Spanish automotive industry

This paper considers the relationship between human resource management (HRM) and knowledge management (KM). Specifically, it examines how the human resource (HR) practices that are expected to impact on employees’ abilities, motivation, and opportunity to engage in KM, do so by enabling knowledge sharing, knowledge maintaining, and knowledge creation within organizations. HRM expected to impact employees’ abilities include training and development practices. HRM expected to impact on employees’ motivation include rewards and appraisal practices. HRM expected to impact on employees’ opportunities including providing the support of trusting collaborative relationships. Therefore, HR practices impacting employees’ abilities, motivation, and opportunities are expected to be positively related to knowledge sharing and maintaining within organizations. HR practices impacting employees’ abilities, motivation, and opportunity are expected to be positively related to knowledge creation through their effect on knowledge sharing within organizations. Our research methodology uses a questionnaire survey approach to collect data from firms belonging to the Spanish automotive industry. Results from a final sample of 64 Spanish automotive firms show that HR practices aimed at motivating and giving employees the opportunity to behave as expected significantly affect knowledge sharing and maintaining. Further, knowledge sharing and maintaining is shown to mediate the relationship between HR practices and knowledge creation. The paper ends with a conclusion, limitations and implications for future research.     

关于水利工程环境影响分析与控制研究

开展水利工程环境影响分析对发挥水利工程功能优势,降低对环境造成的不利影响具有重要的意义。本文主要针对水利工程对自然环境、社会环境所造成的的影响进行系统分析,并提出降低水利工程环境影响的具体对策。     

I give at the office: A review of workplace giving research,theory, and practice

Workplace giving is a widely used philanthropic tool. Although it may have great unmet potential, it is also facing a number of challenges, including competition from informal crowdfunding campaigns. In the face of such challenges, we take stock of the extant research to better understand the value and future of workplace giving, emphasizing employee actions and preferences in our review. Workplace giving studies can also augment knowledge about contextual giving or bounded settings for exploring basic philanthropic questions (e.g., donor control or gift elasticity). We use a three‐part conceptual framework to synthesize and discuss research on individual workplace giving in the context of broader giving behaviors. We address what researchers know, do not know, and need to know on the topic of workplace giving.