Pure donation or hybrid donation crowdfunding: Which model is more conducive to prosocial campaign success?

Abstract

Purpose

Despite the growing research exploring the possibility and feasibility of financing socially oriented projects through crowdfunding, relatively little research examines which crowdfunding model is better to serve such purpose. The purpose of this paper is to offer novel insights to mitigate this research gap.

Design/methodology/approach

A unique data set collected from the largest Chinese crowdfunding platform is used to test the hypotheses. To solve the perceived self-selection problem, the propensity score matching method is adopted in this paper. Based on this approach, the results of similar prosocial campaigns in two different models (pure donation and hybrid donation) are compared.

Findings

The empirical results show that the hybrid donation model is negatively associated with the status of success and the extent of success of prosocial campaigns. Specifically, compared to the pure donation model, hybrid donation model leads to a lower probability of success, fewer contributors, a lower funding amount and a lower completion ratio.

Originality/value

The paper contributes to a relatively understudied theme in crowdfunding, namely, donations. It does so by introducing the concepts of pure vs hybrid donation models and investigates the model selection problem in financing social projects through crowdfunding based on cognitive evaluation theory.

Citation

Zhao, L. and Sun, Z. (2020), "Pure donation or hybrid donation crowdfunding: Which model is more conducive to prosocial campaign success?", Baltic Journal of Management, Vol. 15 No. 2, pp. 237-260. https://doi.org/10.1108/BJM-02-2019-0076