African American style project pitches in business fundraising: Strategies for African American entrepreneurs

Abstract

African American restaurateurs’ number one challenge is limited access to capital, and crowdfunding can be an alternative financing vehicle. However, funding success of African American restaurateurs is significantly lower than that of Caucasian counterparts. To address the gap, the current study examined whether the linguistic styles of African American restaurateurs impact their crowdfunding success. Based on the symbolic interaction framework and 2907 restaurant crowdfunding projects from Kickstarter.com, we found that African American restaurateurs’ project descriptions show distinctive linguistic styles. African Americans use a considerably fewer articles (i.e., “a, “an,” and “the”) and a substantially higher number of religious terms than their Caucasian counterparts. The usage of religious words and negations (e.g., the usage of “none” or “never” in place of “any” or “ever”) are also found to affect fundraising success negatively. This study’s findings help African Americans to compose more effective project narratives to enhance their ability to obtain financing.