Abstract
Donors on charitable crowdfunding platforms do not directly consume the benefits of their donations, making it difficult to assess whether fundraisers follow through on their promised benefits. This difficulty in monitoring the actions of charitable fundraisers increases the importance of ex-ante assessment. This study examines whether potential donors rely on the quality signals embedded in the campaign’s page when deciding the direction of their contributions. Using data on charitable campaigns from a charity-focused crowdfunding platform, GoFundMe, this study finds that campaigns with more thorough descriptions written in a more complex writing style receive more donations from more donors. Additionally, more ambitious projects with higher funding goals also receive more donations. These patterns suggest that providing these quality signals can reduce the uncertainty faced by potential donors.
Recommended Citation
Sulaeman, Deserina and Lin, Mei, "Reducing Uncertainty in Charitable Crowdfunding" (2018). PACIS 2018 Proceedings. 134.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/pacis2018/134