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Prior research offers a minimal amount of direct evidence on the effect of gamification features such as top-donor leaderboards on medical crowdfunding, particularly regarding donor engagement, contributions per donor, and total campaign funds. The study analyzes data from 3,415 distinct medical campaigns, leveraging an unannounced change on GoFundMe. The findings reveal a complex scenario that defies simple expectations. The leaderboard is expected to increase donor engagement, but it appears to discourage larger contributions per donor, a phenomenon termed "crowding out." Despite these mixed outcomes, there is a positive correlation between the leaderboard's presence and the funds raised. These findings highlight the potential of leaderboards to increase engagement and total funds raised in medical crowdfunding campaigns. However, the crowding-out effect raises concerns about the Pareto efficiency of this motivation system. This research contributes insights to both practitioners and theorists, shedding light on the complex interplay between gamification features and crowdfunding outcomes in the medical context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reward-based crowdfunding has enabled an unprecedented number of consumers to provision capital for commercial and artistic ventures. Each year, consumers use digital platforms to transfer billions of dollars to entrepreneurs and artists to help them develop a wide range of market innovations. Notably, these consumers obtain no financial benefits, no formal guarantee that their money will be used aptly, and no reimbursement options. Under such materially unfavorable conditions, why do consumers transfer their money to these producers? The present research answers this question by introducing the concept of a "market-fostering gift system": a social contract that entices consumers to fund the creation and enhancement of market offerings by mobilizing the logic and practices of gift-giving. This conceptualization includes the core stakeholders, processes, outcomes, and shortcomings of reward-based crowdfunding, providing theoretical structure to this consequential articulation of platform capitalism. In addition, this conceptualization advances theory about how gift and market economies intersect. Whereas previous research emphasizes the tensions that characterize their interface, this article brings to the fore the complementary, scalable relationship between gift-giving and market exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This research uses a crowdfunding context to examine when and why a simple difference in frame—using "want" versus "need" in the request—affects funders' compliance with an appeal for contributions. Building on the semantic framing and psycholinguistics literature, we propose that using "want" (vs. "need") signals that the fundraiser is a relatively less (vs. more) dependent person. This perception difference then exerts opposing effects on the two major forms of crowdfunding appeals. For reward-based appeals, in which fundraisers promise a return on contribution, funders have a for-profit (i.e. incentive-seeking) goal and are more willing to contribute to a less dependent fundraiser. In contrast, for donation-based appeals, in which no incentives are promised by the fundraisers, funders are primarily motivated by a nonprofit (i.e. helping) goal and are more willing to contribute to a fundraiser who is seen as more dependent on help. Therefore, we predict that a "want" (vs. "need") frame is more effective in reward-based (vs. donation-based) crowdfunding. Results from two large-scale observational studies and four experiments support our predictions and also illuminate the underlying mechanisms. Collectively, the findings contribute to the literature on semantic framing and crowdfunding and also offer practical implications for fundraisers, marketers, and policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online crowdfunding has become an important fundraising channel for medical care. Yet, individuals in need face numerous challenges in meeting their fundraising goals. To improve fundraising, individuals may use project updates to evoke donors' sympathy and secure donations. Informed by the sympathy bias literature, this paper conceptualizes two important but distinct aspects of project updates—positive sentiment and negative sentiment—and hypothesizes their individual and relative impacts on the donation amount of a crowdfunding project. In addition, this paper explores moderating effects of social endorsements on the influence of update sentiment. To test our hypotheses, we conducted two studies. Study 1 examined unique project-day panel data from 1,467 projects on a leading medical crowdfunding platform. Results reveal that both positive and negative update sentiment positively affect the donation amount of a crowdfunding project, but negative updates have a greater effect. Further, endorsements by strong ties and weak ties attenuate the positive effects of update sentiment. Study 2 was a controlled, randomized experiment that corroborated findings from Study 1, established the causality of observed effects, and confirmed the mediating effects of sympathy. The findings of this paper underscore the role of sympathy in enhancing online charitable crowdfunding to individual donors and show project updates with positive or negative sentiment to be potent mechanisms to boost donations. Furthermore, the substitution effect of social endorsement on donation amount also adds nuance to our knowledge suggesting that a proper combination of various information can better help improve crowdfunding performance. Platform operators and fundraisers should prioritize project update sentiment to enhance online charitable crowdfunding success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how the strength of social ties between focal and peer fundraisers interacts with the network structure generated by these social ties to determine crowdfunding performance. With relationship intensity and preference similarity between focal and peer fundraisers as the two dimensions of tie strength, our study discloses how the benefits and costs associated with these tie strength dimensions are affected by network closure, the degree to which peer fundraisers are connected to each other. Our estimation results indicate that (1) relationship intensity and preference similarity exhibit inverted U-shaped relationships with crowdfunding performance, and (2) network closure attenuates the effectiveness of tie strength dimensions. Together, our study findings reveal an important interplay between indirect and direct social ties. In essence, social ties among peer fundraisers facilitate a group identity that reduces the returns of time and resources a fundraiser spends on strengthening ties with these peer fundraisers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On crowdfunding platforms, the success of campaigns relies on the ability of projects to attract backers. While backers' motivations have been examined, the dynamics existing among the distinct profiles of backers remain underexplored. Combining quantitative and qualitative methods, this research offers a typology of backers' profiles and shows how these profiles contribute to the success of a crowdfunding campaign. Informed by the sociological theory of cooperation, these results explain how backers with different profiles influence each other's decisions to support crowdfunding campaigns. We provide guidelines to project leaders and platforms to attract backers with the best profiles at the best moment to optimise the campaign's success strategy. We also help crowdfunding platform managers build their crowd of backers and optimise their number of funded projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medical crowdfunding has gained significant popularity and importance, yet researchers argue that it might not offer equitable financial assistance to vulnerable groups. Studies in Western countries have highlighted disparities in medical crowdfunding based on racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic dimensions. Despite this, the equity implications of crowdfunding in India have not been thoroughly investigated. We present the initial empirical evidence indicating caste-based inequalities in medical crowdfunding within India. Leveraging a comprehensive dataset comprising 5527 medical crowdfunding campaigns from one of India's largest platforms, we evaluate the impact of the recipient's caste identity on campaign outcomes. Our methodology utilises administrative data to deduce caste from the recipient's surname. Campaigns by individuals from dominant caste groups tend to garner higher funds compared to those from marginalised castes, largely due to higher average donations. Furthermore, individuals from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (marginalised groups in India) initiate disproportionately fewer campaigns than dominant castes. Our findings remain robust across various performance metrics and alternative model specifications, even after adjusting for multiple campaign features and recipient locations. In summary, our study highlights how crowdfunding on for-profit platforms may exacerbate existing caste-related health disparities in India by disproportionately favouring privileged groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurs increasingly tap into both spatial and digital resource environments to mobilize critical resources in support of new ventures. Yet, we know surprisingly little about how entrepreneurs make joint use of these environments. Linking the recent debate on spatial and digital affordances to the resource mobilization literature, this study examines how entrepreneurs mobilize critical resources from local ecosystems and the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter in complementary ways. We discuss two strategies of resource mobilization. (1) The circular strategy, which is mainly applied by social ventures, leverages community narratives and support for crowdfunding campaigns to strengthen and expand the very community support the campaigns are based on. (2) The cumulative strategy, which is mainly applied by commercial high-tech ventures, mobilizes the symbolic value of local institutional ties to attract crowdfunding backers and uses crowdfunding success to attract new resource-holders in local ecosystems. Our findings contribute to research on entrepreneurial resource mobilization and our understanding of the interplay of spatial and digital affordances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to analyse the adequacy of current and proposed European legislative measures for the mitigation and prevention of the use of donation-based crowdfunding to enable terrorist-related financing. Design/methodology/approach: This study examines current and proposed European legislative and academic literature. To provide analysis on the current terrorist financing risks posed by donation-based crowdfunding. Findings: The activity of European donation-based financing is not in theory completely removed from AML/CFT prevention, mitigation and reporting standards. European credit institutions and payment service providers are required to implement AML/CFT internal controls that target their entire customer base, which includes situations whereby an individual and/or individuals elect to engage in donation-based funds transfer. Current European crowdfunding and proposed crowdfunding AML/CFT standards target investment and consumer credit provision by credit and financial institutions and credit and mortgage intermediaries. Donation-based terrorist financing will likely remain a consideration for subversive groups and lone wolf individuals seeking integrated financing. European credit institutions and payment service providers will be required to cooperate both internally and externally on a national and transnational basis to prevent the materialisation of donation-based financing risks, ex-ante. Originality/value: A desktop review composed by the author. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charitable crowdfunding on digital platforms has become a viable way for NGOs to raise funds. This study aims to investigate determinants of charitable behavior (CB) on digital crowdfunding platforms (DCPs), including national culture dimensions, motivations, crowdfunding platform attitude, and donors’ personal characteristics. Data were collected through a CAWI survey of 680 Amazon MTurk users from Europe, the Americas, and Southern Asia. Findings indicate that of the three national culture dimensions considered, CB on DCPs is positively associated with collectivism and negatively with uncertainty avoidance. The link between power distance and CB could be either positive, neutral or negative, due to the interactions with motivations for charity, uncertainty avoidance, and age. Extrinsic and intrinsic motivations do not show significant direct effects on CB but appear to exert their influence through interactions with other motivations, national culture dimensions and respondents’ attributes. People with higher incomes tend to donate more the better is their attitude toward the DCP. CB is stronger among donors more involved in voluntary activities and those living in the Americas as compared to Europe and Asia. The study addresses the knowledge gap concerning the antecedents of CB on DCPs and suggests how NGOs could improve their fundraising effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Crowdfunding is increasingly favoured by entrepreneurs for online financing. Predicting crowdfunding success can provide valuable guidance for stakeholders. It is a new attempt to evaluate the relative performance of different machine learning algorithms for crowdfunding prediction. Objectives: This study aims to identify the key factors of crowdfunding, and find the different performance and usage of machine learning algorithms for crowdfunding prediction. Method: We crawled data from MoDian.com, a Chinese crowdfunding platform, and predicted the crowdfunding performance using four machine learning algorithms, which is a new exploration in this area. Most of the existing literature focuses on empirical analysis. This work solves the problem of predicting crowdfunding performance using a dataset with a minimal number of highly contributive features, which has higher accuracy compared to the regression analysis. Results: The experiment results show that feature‐selection‐based machine learning models are effective and beneficial in crowdfunding prediction. Conclusion: Feature selection can significantly improve the prediction performance of the machine learning models. KNN achieved the best prediction results with five features: number of backers, target amount, number of project likes, number of project comments, and sponsor fans. The prediction accuracy was improved by 16%, the precision was improved by 13.23%, the recall was improved by 22.66%, the F‐score was improved by 18.48%, and the AUC was improved by 14.9%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By harnessing the power of the crowd, crowdfunding has changed the way startup ventures, innovation‐minded entrepreneurs, and private individuals raise capital. Reward‐based crowdfunding is an established and attractive fundraising option for entrepreneurs with creative projects, while investment‐based crowdfunding has also gained popularity thanks to the progress of related regulations. Both types of crowdfunding are drawing a growing number of startups that seek funding opportunities, although backers on different types of crowdfunding platforms exhibit distinct motivations. Understanding the behavior and interaction of different types of backers is thus critical for a startup to launch a successful crowdfunding campaign across distinct platforms. To address this issue, we conduct a field study on a popular crowdfunding platform, where each campaign offered both reward‐ and investment‐based funding. Interestingly, we find a positive relationship between investor contributions in the early stage of the campaign and the likelihood of the campaign's success. Our empirical analysis reveals that investor–consumer interaction mediates the main effect of early investor contributions. Moreover, the positive main effect is stronger when a larger amount of project‐relevant information is released and when a higher level of customization (using price discrimination or product differentiation) is offered in reward‐based funding options. These results are consistent with several robustness checks. Our findings provide relevant managerial implications for entrepreneurs and valuable insights regarding platform design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This systematic literature review examines the existing research on crowdfunding for renewable energy (RE) projects, with the purpose of identifying the factors that influence the need and the success of such crowdfunding campaigns, and the findings discuss the potential role of the public sector, and offer future research directions. The review synthesizes and analyses findings from 33 peer‐reviewed articles published between 2016 and 2023 in leading journals like the Journal of Cleaner Production, Energy Economics, and Journal of Business Research. The results show that crowdfunding can be an effective source of financing for RE projects, particularly in developing countries where traditional financing options are limited. The review identifies financial characteristics, communication and marketing strategies, media coverage, project category, and message framing as key factors that influence the success of crowdfunding campaigns for RE projects. The potential role of the public sector in supporting crowdfunding is also discussed, including creating an enabling environment, providing funding and technical assistance, promoting the benefits of RE and crowdfunding, addressing regulatory and information barriers, and collaborating with other stakeholders. Finally, the review identifies compelling areas for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green finance, defined as channeling money into sustainable development activities, is still far lower than needed to achieve net-zero emissions objectives. In this paper, we discuss the role of technologies in developing green finance. We identify that green finance faces three major challenges, including the risk management of green projects, the scarcity of innovative green financing products, and compliance with the regulations. Then, in the context of the existing literature, we explore recent technologies, including blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), data analytics, Internet of Things (IoT), and robotics that are helping to deal with the challenges in green finance. We show that data-driven approaches utilizing AI and ML help in the risk assessment of green projects; FinTech-based crowdfunding platforms provide innovative green financial products and regulatory technologies (RegTech) support in compliance with regulations. We also identify that the environmental footprint of cryptocurrencies is an emerging area in the technologies and green finance domain. Our framework could be helpful to further extend the debate on the role of technology in green finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined whether fixed or flexible funding mechanisms influence crowdfunding success. Under the fixed funding mechanism, the pledges contributed to the crowdfunding campaign projects are returned to the backers if the project fails, whereas, under the flexible funding mechanism, the project creator can keep all the raised pledges, irrespective of whether the project succeeds or fails. Secondary data consisted of reward-based crowdfunding projects retrieved from The Crowd Data Centre. Logistic regression was employed to respond to research objectives. The results reveal that the fixed funding mechanism increases the probability of success more than flexible funding. Entrepreneur experience, spelling errors, and project description negatively affect crowdfunding success, and backers positively affect crowdfunding success. The findings guide entrepreneurs seeking financing to design and choose an appropriate funding mechanism that effectively reduces the failure rate. Although many entrepreneurs seek funding in the crowdfunding market, relatively little research has been conducted on the influence of flexible or fixed funding mechanisms on crowdfunding success in Africa. This study provides entrepreneurs with appropriate financing strategies that enhance crowdfunding success. The empirical literature indicates that the flexible funding mechanism creates distrust among backers due to unrealistic target amounts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crowdfunding platforms are seen as potential solutions to facilitate disintermediated giving, where people can go directly to the public for help with their difficulties. Although disintermediation is widespread and active in the crowdfunding industry, the fiercely competitive environment, combined with concerns about personal data use and unethical conduct, has resulted in an enormous number of campaigns failing. Therefore, it is crucial to investigate factors that influence contributors’ intention to participate in the crowdfunding platform. Using a self-administered survey, this research collected data from 339 individuals with initial knowledge of crowdfunding activities. The results of hypothesis testing indicate that gamification has a direct positive impact on affective user experience and trust in the platform but insignificantly affects donation intention on a crowdfunding platform. Interestingly, the mediating role of affective user experience and trust are established. The results lead to the discussion that gamification alone not directly impact donors' intentions to contribute on crowdfunding platforms, it significantly influences intention when mediated by affective user experience and trust in the platform. The substantial contribution of the relationship between gamification and trust in the platform, emphasizing the importance of user experience as a key precursor to positive behavioural intentions in online and gamified environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evaluation of crowdfunding campaigns varies from person to person; some investors are more interested in the project's creativity, and others are more concerned with the profiles of entrepreneurs. The study investigated how entrepreneurs' face disclosure influenced the success of crowdfunding. Secondary data were collected from multiple crowdfunding platforms for projects in Africa. That is, cross-country data from 54 African countries, to overcome data limitations from a single country. An econometrics analysis revealed that the facial disclosure of entrepreneurs increases the probability of crowdfunding success by 3%. Images, videos, and backers had a positive influence on the success of crowdfunding. On the contrary, the duration of the crowdfunding campaign was negatively associated with its success. To reduce the knowledge asymmetry between creators and backers, those prepared to start a crowdfunding project must provide as much information as possible to show their abilities. This study contributes to understanding the role of disclosing an entrepreneur's profile on economic exchanges to the success of online crowdfunding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge about whether entrepreneurs' backer‐oriented actions help facilitate successful fundraising, and the mechanism behind it, is still limited. This study aims to mitigate this gap by exploring reward‐based crowdfunding success through the consumer‐based perspective (CBP). Using the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), we investigate how entrepreneurs' backer‐oriented behaviour influences potential backers' information processing and changes their attitude towards campaigns. By analysing a unique dataset collected from China's largest reward‐based crowdfunding platform, our empirical results demonstrate that an entrepreneur's backer‐oriented behaviour and strength are positively associated with reward‐based crowdfunding success. This paper provides a new angle to investigate reward‐based crowdfunding success, emphasizing the importance of CBP during the fundraising stage. In addition to high‐quality campaign content, entrepreneurs' backer‐oriented actions, such as answering questions and providing elaborate answers, are crucial in facilitating fundraising. The implications for future theory development, empirical research and crowdfunding practitioners are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the effectiveness of storytelling in enhancing social crowdfunding donations for nonprofit organizations. Using a sample of 708 respondents, partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is employed to analyze the relationships between storytelling, prosocial motivations, trust in a social crowdfunding platform, and social crowdfunding donation intentions. The findings demonstrate that storytelling positively influences pleasure-based (desire to help) and pressure-based (sense of obligation) prosocial motivations, ultimately driving intentions to donate to social crowdfunding. Interestingly, pressure-based motivation exerts a stronger effect on the intention to donate. Additionally, this study highlights the crucial mediating role of trust in the social crowdfunding platform, suggesting the importance of the platform’s credibility in connecting pleasure and pressure-based prosocial motivation on the intention to donate to social crowdfunding. This is the first study to investigate social crowdfunding through the lens of consumer storytelling theory and pleasure and pressure-based prosocial motivation theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the relationship between Right-to-Work (RTW) laws and creativity. Using data from the Kickstarter crowdfunding platform for the period 2010–2019, we find that the number of projects launched, the probability of success, the average amount of capital pledged, and the average number of backers are all significantly higher in states without RTW laws than in states with RTW laws. This finding holds for both Art- and Product- focused projects. Thus, our findings are consistent with the view that states without RTW laws provide a better outlet for creativity than states with RTW laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurs and small businesses have increasingly used reward-based crowdfunding to raise capital for their creative projects, whose success is central to this industry. Thus, predicting the success of crowdfunding campaigns is a topic of great importance for entrepreneurs and platform managers. The literature that employs monolithic classifiers and static ensemble learning for crowdfunding success prediction are scarce. In contrast, the dynamic selection (DS) algorithm, which belongs to the ensemble learning category, deserves a particular remark since it has overcome traditional monolithic classifiers and static ensembles in many applications. This paper proposes a dynamic selection framework for reward crowdfunding prediction. DS algorithms select a competent subset of the classifier per query instance. This procedure is performed during the generalization, and the subset is composed of local experts, favoring an increase in accuracy. Fifteen machine learning models are evaluated using three metrics (accuracy, area under the ROC curve and F-score), and ensemble learning obtained better results than traditional classifiers. In particular, Meta-DES, which performs dynamic selection, obtains the best overall results among the evaluated models. Furthermore, since usually interpreting the output of ML models is considered to be very difficult due to their complex "black box" architecture, we also use Shapley additive explanations to interpret the perdition's outputs. Among variables evaluated in our models, the textual sentiment of the mass media, the number of pledges, and the target amount of the campaign deserve a highlight when predicting the campaign's success. The source-code and further details about the experimental analysis are available at https://github.com/las33/Crowdfunding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crowdfunding and micro-donations for funding political campaigns have been extensively studied, especially in the US. However, digital participatory financing in Europe, with a different regulatory context and relevant public funding, has been investigated less. This article analyses the effects of an innovative and digital-native electoral campaign financing tool: the microcredit. Microcredits consist of small "civil loans" that a political party requests from sympathizers to finance the party's electoral campaign. Based on the case study of the Spanish party Podemos – the first one to implement it – for the period of 2015–2021, we use official data and party documents to explore the consequences of microcredit. We argue, first, that microcredits (and party financing) should be considered another way to differentiate challenger parties from traditional ones. Second, there is a link between the number and amount of microcredits and the political context, not limited to good electoral expectations but also to the polarized political context. Third, microcredits change the structure of campaign funding. Finally, we point out a regulation problem that may deter other parties from adopting this mechanism and present different legal problems (monitoring, data protection, or potential corruption), showing the regulatory issues for adapting to the digitalization of politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advance of technology, several crowdfunding platforms have emerged in Hong Kong to host informal public donation appeals. Unlike charitable crowdfunding activities, these appeals focus on crowdfunding to provide relief to specific individuals or groups in need. Due to the recent emergence of online informal public donation appeals and their lack of public benefit, regulatory bodies have not paid much attention to their regulation. However, recent media coverage highlighting scandals of maladministration of donation funds in the context of informal public donation appeals has impelled regulators to establish a systemic framework to govern crowdfunding platforms that host informal public donation appeals. This article addresses two main aspects of this topic. First, it discusses the operation of crowdfunding platforms that host informal public donation appeals and the risks associated with them. Second, it explores the feasibility of utilising trust law to regulate the administration of donation funds by these crowdfunding platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crowdfunding platforms are believed to create a more equal-opportunity environment for fundraising by removing entrance barriers found in traditional entrepreneurial markets. Our work investigates whether in creating more equal opportunities for entrepreneurs to enter the market, crowdfunding platforms also create a more equal distribution of funds across ventures. To this end, we utilized a natural experiment in the form of a policy change on Kickstarter.com that resulted in opening the market to more players. Using platform-level analysis, we show that opening the platform shifted demand toward the head of the distribution: More funds and backers became concentrated in a smaller number of head-offers (the superstar effect). Using individual backer-level analysis, we show that these changes in demand distribution are likely to have resulted from changes in investors' investment behavior, beyond changes in the composition of the demand side (that is, changes in the types of investors entering the market). Together, our results suggest that efforts to level the playing field in crowdfunding platforms can ultimately result in a less equitable distribution of funds across market participants, and drive investors to focus their investments on a smaller set of campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crowdfunding platforms have emerged as a promising contemporary means for mobilising collective civic actions to address local or social issues, improve community cohesion and develop the public good. This empirical study taps into the understudied civic crowdfunding platforms (CCP) developed to facilitate such actions, proposing, supporting and funding public‐interest projects through crowdsourcing and microfinancing. Previous studies have shown that individuals' characteristics affect their level of civic engagement with social issues. Considering the diversity of contributor motivations, we aim to shed light on the dynamics of emergent subpopulations of citizens who participate in CCPs. To this end, we use a sequential mixed‐methods approach to integrate our fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) findings with the results of an in‐depth qualitative study, to gain rich and robust inferences and meta‐inferences. In Study 1 (n = 316), we used fsQCA to explore five distinctive configural profiles that display the heterogeneity of civic backers' motivations, including civic champions, prosocial advocates, normative supporters, reward seekers and regret‐averse contributors. In Study 2, we corroborated and complemented our fsQCA inferences through an extreme‐case study and identified four boundary conditions. Taken together, our inferences and meta‐inferences address the heterogeneity of motivations for participating in CCPs, by understanding and theorising about diverse profiles of citizen backers. Finally, we offer practical implications for successful civic crowdfunding initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nascent entrepreneurs often believe that their chances of success are better than those of others due to imperfect information about the competencies and accomplishments of other entrepreneurs, leading to overplacement. Theory suggests that the provision of historical outcome data of comparable projects could help entrepreneurs develop more realistic plans and expectations by closing the information gap and enabling the calibration of their beliefs. However, effectively calibrating beliefs by incorporating new reference information requires effortful cognitive processing and rational integration of the data, which may be impeded by the same cognitive biases leading to overplacement initially. Drawing from a unique dataset that allows us to observe substantial parts of the planning process of 971 entrepreneurs, we investigate the effectiveness of providing reference values as a debiasing tool. Rather than rationally leveraging the information for honest self-assessment, our findings suggest that entrepreneurs use the information to differentiate themselves even more from the reference group after they see the historical values. This, in turn, results in an even higher level of overplacement. JEL Classifications: G41, D91, L26, L25. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We employ a sharp regression discontinuity design to identify the causal effects of investor-base disclosure (IB DISCLOSE) on funding outcomes and entrepreneurship success. Since February 2016, Kickstarter has disclosed IB information, namely, backer statistics including geographic locations and previous funding experience of the backers, once the number of backers for a project reaches ten. Exploiting this discontinuity, we show the disclosure increases the likelihood of funding success by 10 percent and the amount of funds pledged by 13 percent. The effect is more pronounced when the project quality is high and for projects with less credible creators, high ex ante uncertainty, high information asymmetry between creators and backers, and high financial costs to backers. We also find IB DISCLOSE increases the likelihood of product delivery. Our study highlights the importance of platform-provided disclosure in improving the efficiency of capital allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research, based on a survey of 357 college students, employED a 2 x 2 x 2 between-subject factorial design to explore relationships between self-efficacy, social identification, involvement, and donation intention. Results revealed that while high self-efficacy correlated with stronger e-Word-of-Mouth intention, it did not significantly impact donation intention. Conversely, both high social identification and high involvement significantly correlated with stronger donation and e-Word-of-Mouth intentions. These findings provide valuable insights for campaign creators, platform administrators, and philanthropic organizations. Recognizing critical roles of self-efficacy, social identification, and involvement could allow stakeholders to design more effective fundraising campaigns, foster a sense of community, and tailor approaches to align with motivations and preferences of potential donors. This research enhances our understanding of the nuanced dynamics shaping donation intention in donation-based crowdfunding platforms, bridging the gap between academic inquiry and practical implications for the evolving landscape of online philanthropy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crowdfunding is an innovative means of financing entrepreneurial initiatives. This study explores the effect of signaling on the crowdfunding performance of social economy organizations (SEOs) in South Korea. Analyzing 677 reward‐based crowdfunding projects by SEOs, we found that signaling social purpose, economic purpose, and organizational information were likely to be related to performance. In addition, signals reflecting an isomorphism akin to that of SEOs' identity were also positively correlated with crowdfunding performance. These findings contribute to the literature by offering insights about the effect of signals of SEOs on crowdfunding and demonstrating that fundraiser characteristics may influence crowdfunding performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing literature has studied the impact of government funding on donations to nonprofits, proposing and testing different theoretical models, including crowd-out, crowd-in, and inverted U-shaped models. However, there is no consensus regarding whether or under what conditions government funding crowds out or crowds in donations to nonprofits, and little is known regarding whether and how government funding influences time donations. Existing evidence focuses on Western contexts and may not be applicable to non-Western contexts. This study used a random sample of Chinese social service organizations and proposed a more nuanced and complex conditional crowd-out/in model of government funding on donations to nonprofits, extending the testing to both financial and time donations in China. The results from extended regression models with instrumental variables indicate that government funding levels crowd out money donations, while dependence on government funding has an inverted U-shaped effect on money donations. Both the level of and dependence on government funding have curvilinear crowding-out effects on time donations. More importantly, the level of and dependence on government funding have significant interactive effects on both money and time donations. These novel findings make significant theoretical contributions to the literature and have important practical implications for policymakers and nonprofit managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crowdfunding has become a popular financing method, attracting investors, businesses, and entrepreneurs. However, many campaigns fail to secure funding, making it crucial to reduce participation risks using artificial intelligence (AI). This study investigates the effectiveness of advanced AI techniques in predicting the success of crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter by analyzing campaign blurbs. We compare the performance of two widely used text representation models, bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT) and FastText, in conjunction with long-short term memory (LSTM) and gradient boosting machine (GBM) classifiers. Our analysis involves preprocessing campaign blurbs, extracting features using BERT and FastText, and evaluating the predictive performance of these features with LSTM and GBM models. All experimental results show that BERT representations significantly outperform FastText, with the highest accuracy of 0.745 achieved using a fine-tuned BERT model combined with LSTM. These findings highlight the importance of using deep contextual embeddings and the benefits of fine-tuning pre-trained models for domain-specific applications. The results are benchmarked against existing methods, demonstrating the superiority of our approach. This study provides valuable insights for improving predictive models in the crowdfunding domain, offering practical implications for campaign creators and investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The objective of the article is to investigate the applicability of crowdfunding in the museum context, addressing the limited research available in this area. By focusing on museums in Poland, known for their cultural diversity, the objective was to examine how crowdfunding can provide financial support, enhance museum visibility, and foster community engagement. Research Design & Methods: Using an exploratory qualitative approach, we analysed digital data from 28 Polish museum crowdfunding projects collected between May and July 2023. We examined structural choices, social communication strategies, and goal achievement using online promotional channels. This analysis followed predefined research questions and a theory-driven coding method with consensus coding by two researchers. Findings: Our research highlights crowdfunding's potential in addressing museums' financial challenges, and offering tailored support, especially for smaller institutions. It also identifies cases of campaigns falling short of funding goals due to inadequate promotion and donor communication. Reward-based crowdfunding consistently outperforms donation-based models, strengthening audience connections and cultural heritage dissemination in the museum context. Implications & Recommendations: This study underscores crowdfunding as a financial solution for museums, emphasizing the need for digital literacy and employee training. Variations in communication strategies among museums highlight the importance of strategic planning. Crowdfunding can enhance financial stability, audience connections, and societal impact when aligned with other financial measures, making it a viable strategy for museums. Contribution & Value Added: This research contributes to the existing body of knowledge on innovative fundraising, engagement, and museum management. It bridges the gap in research regarding crowdfunding in museums. The study's value lies in its comprehensive understanding of how crowdfunding can be applied across various facets of museum operations, providing museums with valuable insights for financial support, audience engagement, and enhancing their societal impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the inconsistency in the literature on crowdinvestment motivations and the uniqueness of football club investors, the purpose of this study is to identify the motivation to invest in football clubs through equity crowdfunding. Following Churchill's scale development procedure, it is found that those who crowdinvest in football clubs are fans who highly identify with these teams. The fans' motivations include supporting the cause of the campaign, acquiring the status of a football club owner, and gaining rewards. These findings show the dominance of intrinsic motivations among crowdinvestors of European football clubs, providing evidence for compensatory activities assumed in self-determination theory, which is the theoretical framework for this research. Moreover, we devise a motivation scale that can be adopted in future research on equity crowdfunding for football clubs. For sports managers, the results offer practical recommendations for marketing communication and relationship marketing of equity crowdfunding campaigns by football clubs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past two decades, there has been a decline in the use of uniform-price auctions in favor of fixed prices in markets of peer-to-peer lending, equity crowdfunding, and initial public offerings. This article aims to analytically study why this trend might be occurring. The analysis reveals that, relative to a fixed price, a uniform-price auction leads to more herding and strategic delay of bid submission and, consequently, a smaller transaction completion probability and lower expected revenue. These predictions are consistent with the empirical regularities observed for the bidding behavior and funding outcomes on Prosper, one of the leading peer-to-peer online lending platforms, and those documented in the literature for markets of equity crowdfunding and initial public offerings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prosocial crowdfunding relies on funders' altruistic contribution to sustain. The channel structure of platforms may affect funders' altruistic incentives. It is critical to understand how funders choose different channels, direct vs. intermediated, and how the co-existence of the two channels affect funders' contribution. Our study builds a theoretical framework based on theories of altruism to understand funders' incentives, including pure altruism, warm glow, and reputation. The framework helps us to explicate funders' incentives for choosing between channels and predict potential changes in funder contribution after the introduction of the direct channel. Using data from Kiva.org and the unique setup of a natural experiment, we find that funders with high level of pure altruism are more likely to select the direct channel. We also find that the introduction of the new direct channel stimulates instead of cannibalizing contribution on the intermediated channel. It suggests that the direct channel segments riskier projects and meets the needs of pure altruists, while the intermediated channel promotes contribution to less risky projects with increased publicity. The market segments have a positive impact on the total contribution. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In this study, the authors sought to investigate how the implicit social ties of both project owners and potential backers are associated with crowdfunding project success. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on social ties theory and factors that affect crowdfunding success, in this research, the authors developed a model to study how project owners' and potential backers' implicit social ties are associated with crowdfunding projects' degrees of success. The proposed model was empirically tested with crowdfunding data collected from Kickstarter and social media data collected from Twitter. The authors performed the test using an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model with fixed effects. Findings: The authors found that project owners' implicit social ties (specifically, their social media activities, degree centrality and betweenness centrality) are significantly and positively associated with crowdfunding projects' degrees of success. Meanwhile, potential project backers' implicit social ties (their social media activities and degree centrality) are negatively associated with crowdfunding projects' degrees of success. The authors also found that project size moderates the effects of project owners' social media activities on projects' degrees of success. Originality/value: This work contributes to the literature on crowdfunding by investigating how the implicit social ties of both potential backers and project owners on social media are associated with crowdfunding project success. This study extends the previous research on social ties' roles in explaining crowdfunding project success by including implicit social ties, while the literature explored only explicit social ties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the background of the Internet, many new publishing methods have been developed, and crowdfunding publishing is one of them. Crowdfunding publishing breaks the one-way static publishing environment of traditional publishing, and at the same time extends the traditional publishing industry chain, injecting new vitality into China’s publishing industry. By analyzing the larger crowdfunding platforms and crowdfunding publishing cases in China, this paper focuses on the development status and problems of crowdfunding publishing in China and tries to provide effective suggestions on the problems. Crowdfunding publishing has been developing in China for ten years, has attracted widespread attention in the industry from the very beginning. Moreover, it has developed rapidly in the context of crowdfunding economy, forming a relatively mature crowdfunding platform and model, with an increasing number of successful crowdfunding publishing projects demonstrating a certain degree of influence. However, China’s crowdfunding publishing is still in the early stage of development due to the imperfect laws and regulations of crowdfunding publishing, the profit model has not yet been successfully explored, and individual self-marketing is greater than quality content production. Only by strengthening the operation and construction of comprehensive crowdfunding platforms, striving to build vertical specialized crowdfunding platforms, and focusing on the publications themselves and content innovation, can China’s crowdfunding publishing break through and grow? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crowdfunding has emerged as a transformative alternative to traditional innovation financing. Limitations of conventional funding sources have led to increased interest in alternative financing mechanisms. Crowdfunding, leveraging online platforms, has democratized access to capital, enabling entrepreneurs to develop products and services that align with broader population needs. This paper surveys the literature, demonstrating how crowdfunding platforms have opened doors to capital for entrepreneurs who might otherwise have found it challenging to secure funding through established channels. While crowdfunding's impact on innovation is multifaceted and contingent on factors like innovation type, entrepreneur quality, and regulatory frameworks, its growth trajectory remains robust, solidifying its significance as a source of entrepreneurial finance. The study aims to (1) analyze the effectiveness of crowdfunding in bridging the funding gap for startups, (2) compare crowdfunding with other forms of entrepreneurial finance, (3) assess crowdfunding's role in fostering innovation, (4) differentiate between crowdfunding and crowdsourcing, and (5) identify the types of innovation facilitated by crowdfunding. Effective crowdfunding implementation hinges on these factors, necessitating concerted efforts from entrepreneurs, investors, and policymakers to surmount associated challenges and harness its potential for innovation and economic growth. The findings highlight the necessity for a supportive regulatory framework and the importance of transparency and trust in crowdfunding practices. This study underscores the role of policymakers in creating an environment that fosters innovation through alternative financing. However, this study is limited by the availability of comprehensive data across different crowdfunding platforms and regions. Further empirical research is needed to generalize the findings across various contexts, deepen our understanding of crowdfunding's impact on innovation, and develop strategies to leverage the potential of crowdfunding for innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reward-based crowdfunding is a typical two-sided platform (fundraiser side and backer side) with high information asymmetry. While existing research indicates that signals from fundraisers and backers can impact crowdfunding performance, the interplay among these signals warrants further investigation. Drawing on signaling theory, this study adopts a configurational perspective and utilizes the fsQCA method and linear regression to investigate the combined effects of fundraiser engagement (update and fundraiser comment), third-party endorsement (backer comment and Facebook sharing), and project preparedness (video, image, and description) on crowdfunding performance. Drawing data from the reward-based crowdfunding platform Indiegogo, this research pointed out that these signals cannot generate better crowdfunding performance alone and examined substitution and complementary effects among different signals. Based on the linear regression and fsQCA results, configurations that lead to high crowdfunding performance are identified. We found that project preparedness must work with other signals to produce high crowdfunding performance. Besides, we summarized these configurations into two patterns that may lead to high crowdfunding performance: a fundraiser engagement-driven pattern and a third-party endorsement-driven pattern. This study contributes a configurational perspective and valuable insights into how signals can work together to mitigate information asymmetry in crowdfunding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crowdfunding platforms are important for startups, since they offer diverse financing options, market validation, and promotional opportunities through an investor community. These platforms provide detailed company information, aiding informed investment decisions within a regulated and secure environment. Machine learning (ML) techniques are important in analyzing large data sets, detecting anomalies and fraud, and enhancing decision-making and business strategies. A systematic review employed PRISMA guidelines, which studied how ML improves fraud detection on digital crowdfunding platforms. The analysis includes English-language studies from peer-reviewed journals published between 2018 and 2023 to analyze the pre- and post-COVID-19 pandemic. The findings indicate that ML techniques such as Random Forest, Support Vector Machine, and Artificial Neural Networks significantly enhance the predictive accuracy and utility of tax planning for startups considering equity crowdfunding. The United States, Germany, Canada, Italy, and Turkey do not present statistically significant differences at the 95% confidence level, standing out for their notable academic visibility. Florida Atlantic and Cornell Universities, Springer and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. publishing houses, and the Journal of Business Ethics and Management Science magazines present the highest citations without statistical differences at the 95% confidence level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an era of one-off funding, entrepreneurs and small businesses struggle to find sustainable funding sources. A novel solution – the crowd patronage model, has emerged in recent years. This model incorporates elements from traditional crowdfunding but is systematically different due to the lack of a fixed funding goal or duration. To capitalise on the long-term nature of crowd patronage, this article explores whether factors that have an impact in traditional crowdfunding will have a similar impact within an extended duration beyond what traditional crowdfunding typically offers. We posit that incentivising mechanisms will have a long-term impact on crowd patronage, whereas project characteristic measures will exhibit short-term effects. Using data from 3229 crowd patronage projects, we find that our results largely support our hypotheses. Given our findings, we propose using project characteristics to attract contributors before shifting focus to incentivising mechanisms as the project matures in order to maximise crowdfunding returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by emerging financing techniques that offer additional financing options for entrepreneurs, we establish a stylized model to compare two prevalent crowdfunding strategies: Reward-based crowdfunding and Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). First, we highlight that the fundamental difference between reward-based crowdfunding and ICO lies in the distinct types of price distortion, resulting in different agency costs. Specifically, compared to the first-best benchmark, reward-based crowdfunding sets a lower funding price to attract more consumers to pre-order, while ICO sets a higher market price due to speculators' revenue-sharing in the market stage. Second, we show that the financing limit (i.e., the maximum funds raised) of reward-based crowdfunding is driven by the platform traffic, whereas that of ICO is driven by the marginal production cost. Therefore, even with numerous speculators, ICO may result in a lower financing limit than reward-based crowdfunding when the platform traffic or the marginal production cost is high. Third, we explore how products' cost structures shape entrepreneurs' financing preferences. ICO suits intangible products with high fixed cost and low marginal production cost, while reward-based crowdfunding aligns better with products exhibiting the opposite cost structure. Finally, we extend our model to show the robustness of our findings and offer some additional insights. For example, ICO may amplify the risk of market uncertainty compared to reward-based crowdfunding; Security Token Offerings (STO) benefits from the absence of agency costs between the entrepreneur and speculators compared to ICO while it may suffer from equity loss, particularly in risky and regulated markets, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 impact on global poverty dragged another 97 million people into poverty in 2020. Nonetheless, there is scant evidence reporting on the impacts on alternative means of financing designed to enable the poor during this global health crisis. This paper addresses this gap of funding impoverished entrepreneurs by studying the changes in their successfully funded campaigns on the largest crowdfunding microfinance platform prior and during COVID-19. After collecting data from January 2018 to November 2021 for a total of 767,112 campaigns, we report that the COVID-19 pandemic positively impacts on the funding success of the crowdfunding campaigns. However, rises in the daily number of COVID-19 cases negatively associate with campaigns getting fully funded. The odds of campaigns being fully funded decrease by 4.4% for a one thousand increase in new cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crowdfunding is a new type of financing favored by entrepreneurs in need of capital. Financing performance is a key concern for crowdfunding project initiators. Although a growing number of studies have investigated the factors that affect the financing performance of crowdfunding projects, there are still some issues that need to be further clarified. How does the investment behavior of backers, as the supply side of finance, affect the financing performance of project in reward-based crowdfunding? What are the moderating mechanisms of this influence by initiator characteristics and project attributes? Based on a panel data set from Zhongchou, a famous agri-food crowdfunding platform in China, this paper finds that the investment speed, the investment intensity, the number of early backers, the backers' comments, and the number of selfless backers all have significant effects on financing performance. The core trust factors of initiator characteristics and project attributes play a moderating role in the relationship between backer investment behavior and financing performance, but there are differences in the moderating mechanisms. Based on the research conclusions, practical enlightenment is proposed for initiators, crowdfunding platforms, and regulators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Despite the critical contribution of serial backers in advancing crowdfunding volumes, few studies have addressed the phenomenon of serial backing. Research on the motivations of backers suggests that cognitive antecedents influence pledging in crowdfunding projects according to the theory of planned behavior. However, intrinsic factors associated with different dimensions of well-being may also explain crowdfunding support. This study seeks to advance the understanding of drivers of serial backing by combining the theory of planned behavior and the theory of well-being. Design/methodology/approach: The study draws on survey data from 336 serial backers, complemented by objective data on the number of campaigns and amounts invested by backers from Headstart, the largest crowdfunding platform in Israel. The research model is tested using structural equation modeling. Findings: The findings indicate that the well-being of serial backers mediates the impact of attitude, subjective norms and social norms on their loyalty. However, while loyalty can be explained by elements of both theories, it does not translate into actual serial backing behavior. Originality/value: This study is the first to systematically explore serial backers' motivations in crowdfunding and the influence of these motivations on their actual behavior. It combines two previously separate theories, the theory of planned behavior and the theory of well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patients may use crowdfunding to solicit donations, typically from multiple small donors using internet-based means, to offset the financial toxicity of cancer care. To describe crowdfunding campaigns by gynecologic cancer patients and to compare campaign characteristics and needs expressed between patients with cervical, uterine, and ovarian cancer. We queried the public crowdfunding forum GoFundMe.com for "cervical cancer," "uterine cancer," and "ovarian cancer." The first 200 consecutive posts for each cancer type fundraising within the United States were analyzed. Data on campaign goals and needs expressed were manually extracted. Descriptive statistics and bivariate analyses were performed. Among the 600 fundraising pages, the median campaign goal was $10,000 [IQR $5000–$23,000]. Campaigns raised a median of 28.6% of their goal with only 8.7% of campaigns reaching their goal after a median of 54 days online. On average, ovarian cancer campaigns had higher monetary goals, more donors, and larger donation amounts than cervical cancer campaigns and raised more money than both cervical and uterine cancer campaigns. Campaigns were fundraising to support medical costs (80–85%) followed by lost wages (36–56%) or living expenses (27–41%). Cervical cancer campaigns reported need for non-medical costs more frequently than uterine or ovarian cancer campaigns. States without Medicaid expansions (31% of the national population) were over-represented among cervical cancer and uterine cancer, but not ovarian cancer campaigns. Crowdfunding pages reveal patients fundraising for out-of-pocket costs in the thousands of dollars and a wide range of unmet financial needs based on cancer type. • Patients crowdfunding for gynecologic cancer care had a median campaign goal of $10,000 and raised a median of $2800. • Campaigns raised a median of 28.6% of their goal. After a median of 54 days online, only 8.7% had reached their goal. • 82% of campaigns fundraised for medical expenses, while 32% fundraised for non-medical living expenses. • 32% of campaigns fundraised to offset lost wages, which was more common among cervical cancer campaigns. • States without an implemented Medicaid expansion were over-represented among cervical and uterine cancer campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]