Greening crowdfunding campaigns: an investigation of message framing and effective communication strategies for funding success

Monica Rossolini,Alessandro Ronconi,Alessia Pedrazzoli

doi:10.1108/ijbm-01-2021-0039

Abstract

PurposeRecognising the growing importance of environmental and sustainable activities and the role of communication strategies in soliciting their financing, this work investigates the influence of message framing, green emphasis and quantitative information on the probability of green crowdfunding campaigns' success.Design/methodology/approachThis analysis is based on crowdfunding campaigns published between 2015 and 2020 on the Indiegogo platform in the category “Community projects – Environment”. The study develops an in-depth qualitative content analysis of the projects before performing an empirical examination to determine funding causes.FindingsCommunication strategies (message framing, green emphasis and quantitative goals) affect funding success. However, project category moderates the impact of message framing and green emphasis on campaign success. While positive framing increases agri-food campaign success, negative framing is more effective for clean energy and climate preservation projects. Moreover, indication of a quantitative goal and a marked green emphasis in a project's presentation increase campaign success, but a too marked green emphasis is only effective for agri-food projects.Practical implicationsGreen entrepreneurs and campaign managers must work carefully on their projects' communication, accounting for the type of product proposed, emphasising green components in its description and utilising quantitative information to present future goals. These strategies maximise backers' responses and enable entrepreneurs to obtain funding. The authors’ findings may be extended to other contexts, including the banking sector, to craft effective communication strategies for green financial products.Originality/valueBy applying framing theory in a new context (i.e. the online financing of green entrepreneurs), this study identifies new campaign success determinants and provides evidence for the moderating role of project category. Furthermore, the study highlights the need to develop different communication strategies for social and environmental-oriented projects.

Highlights

Growing international concerns about environmental sustainability and climate change are propelling the implementation of green innovations and the rise of environmentally sustainable companies (European Commission, 2019)
We examine the effects of message framing, green emphasis and quantitative goals on the likelihood that a crowdfunding project will succeed in raising funds
In Model I, the variables affecting the success of a green campaign are a positively framed message, a campaign goal expressed in quantitative terms and a project related to the clean energy category

Summary

Introduction

Growing international concerns about environmental sustainability and climate change are propelling the implementation of green innovations and the rise of environmentally sustainable companies (European Commission, 2019). These developments, in turn, contribute to the creation of new products and technologies that aim to mitigate the environmental risks and negative consequences of resource exploitation (Castellacci and Lie, 2017; Spielman, 2020). The rise of the fintech industry, where technology is applied to financial activities (Leong, 2018), offers new tools and intermediaries, such as crowdfunding platforms, that are suitable for supporting the financing needs of this type of business (Calic and Mosakowski, 2016; Cumming et al, 2017; Kim and Hall, 2021; Messeni Petruzzelli et al, 2019; Testa et al, 2019). Crowdfunding platforms attract these financial actors to increase strategic competencies that are required in project scouting and risk evaluation (Cosma et al, 2021; Mason et al, 2019)

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