The impact of sustainable development goals in lending-based prosocial crowdfunding: A topic modeling analysis on the kiva platform

Abstract

In lending-based prosocial crowdfunding, where campaigns are specifically focused on entrepreneurial proposals that address significant social and environmental challenges, it is still not clear what factors are more likely to favor a campaign's success. The literature recognizes that project descriptions constitute a major source of information for funders and can influence their choice of whether to lend financial resources. Given the nature of lending-based prosocial crowdfunding, we focus on the presence of different sustainable development goal (SDG) themes in project descriptions, identified through topic modeling analysis, and we measure their impact on the success of a campaign. Using data collected from the Kiva platform, we show that some SDG themes have a negative effect, while others have a positive impact on the success of a campaign. The outcomes of this research contribute to overall scientific understanding of the phenomenon and provide useful insights for entrepreneurs and policymakers to increase the success of their campaigns and further spread lending-based prosocial crowdfunding.