Paper ID
2733
Paper Type
short
Description
Crowdfunding offers an innovative approach to financing projects by facilitating many individuals and organizations to contribute, often small amounts, to these projects. In the context of donation-based crowdfunding, we study how social distance affects average donations. Drawing on construal level theory, we argue that project images featuring humans reduce the social distance for donors because they can identify with the recipients; thus, these campaigns are more concrete, and donors give more. To test the effect of social distance using (human) project images on average donations, we conducted two studies, one observational and one experimental study. In both studies, we show that projects, whose images feature humans, receive higher donations.
Recommended Citation
Weinmann, Markus and Mishra, Abhay, "The Effect of Social Distance in Donation-Based Crowdfunding" (2019). ICIS 2019 Proceedings. 15.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2019/general_topics/general_topics/15
The Effect of Social Distance in Donation-Based Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding offers an innovative approach to financing projects by facilitating many individuals and organizations to contribute, often small amounts, to these projects. In the context of donation-based crowdfunding, we study how social distance affects average donations. Drawing on construal level theory, we argue that project images featuring humans reduce the social distance for donors because they can identify with the recipients; thus, these campaigns are more concrete, and donors give more. To test the effect of social distance using (human) project images on average donations, we conducted two studies, one observational and one experimental study. In both studies, we show that projects, whose images feature humans, receive higher donations.