The contribution of crowdfunding for philanthropy: A systematic review and framework of donation and reward crowdfunding

Abstract

Which novelties do donation- and reward-based crowdfunding bring to philanthropy? Scholars interested in crowdfunding contributed to developing empirical explanations on which features impact online giving. However, the focus on theory building is limited. We developed a theoretical framework by categorizing the empirical findings reported in 198 studies, which resulted in four crowdfunding features impacting giving: (1) project creator, (2) social information, (3) rewards, and (4) project description. We explain why these features impact giving by integrating them with insights from several fields of social sciences, deriving seven giving mechanisms. We conclude that with impacting donations via crowdfunding, three giving themes exist: being affected by (1) the perceived project's quality, (2) social connections and/or (3) tangible rewards. The categorization of mechanisms for giving allows initiators to extract best practice examples for increasing the probability of successful crowdfunding projects considering the giving mechanisms.