Abstract
Whereas the effect of people’s motivations to give to traditional, off-line charities has been extensively investigated, their motivations to support online charitable crowdfunding projects are largely unexplored. The present study examines the influences of extrinsic motivations (such as reputation, the wish to signal a certain image; and reciprocity, the expectation on future return for their present contribution), intrinsic motivations (such as a sense of belonging, the feeling of belonging to an integral part of a positive community; joy of giving, the anticipated positive emotions experienced by helping others; altruism, intrinsic desire to help others without expectation of a return; and financial constraints, individuals’ personally felt financial stresses induced by donations), and social interactions (such as social influence, people’s perception of how their close acquaintances believe they should support the project; and social ties, the strength of the relationship between the individual and the project initiator) on intentions to support charitable crowdfunding behaviors, namely, the willingness to share (WTS) project information and the intention to donate (ITD) money. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses on self-reported survey data from 617 respondents in China reveal support for the hypotheses. The results show that intrinsic motivations and social ties are predictors for both supporting behaviors. Reputation and social influence motivate people to share projects, but have no significant effects on their ITD. Reciprocity is positively, and financial constraints are negatively, related to ITD but have no significant effects on WTS. These findings offer insights into the motivations driving individuals’ participation in charitable crowdfunding. The implications for both platforms and fundraisers are discussed.
Highlights
To specify, using self-rated data, this study examines two extrinsic motivations, four intrinsic motivations, and two social interaction motivations that may affect charitable crowdfunding behaviors, based on studies of traditional charities (Bekkers and Wiepking, 2011; Konrath and Handy, 2018), virtual communities (Zhang X. et al, 2017), and crowdfunding (Choy and Schlagwein, 2016; Jian and Shin, 2015)
The first step involved the analysis of the measurement model, where reliability, validity, and common method bias (CMB) were examined
The extrinsic motivation variable, reciprocity, is not found to be related to willingness to share (WTS) project information, which can be explained by the fact that sharing project information with one’s own social network is a costless way to support a project, and donations are made by crowds anonymously; reciprocity is not expected on social networks
Summary
Crowdfunding aims to collect funds through the Internet for commercial or charitable purposes (Choy and Schlagwein, 2016). Internet-based crowdfunding platforms allow project initiators to reach large crowds publicly (Gerber et al, 2012). In China, charitable crowdfunding platforms, such as Shuidichou, Qingsong Chou, and Aixin Chou, provide opportunities for any initiator to launch a project and request a certain amount of money that needs to be raised within a fixed period. Launching a charitable crowdfunding project on Social Network Services (SNSs) is a fast and far-reaching way to broadcast information to a large pool of users and to build widespread support, which maximizes the chances of its success (Cecere et al, 2017). WeChat, one of China’s largest SNSs, serves as a fundraising channel that allows users to raise money for charitable purposes. The WeChat page of a specific project on the medical treatment crowdfunding platform Shuidichou has been attached in the Supplementary Figure 1
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