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This study aims to expand the existing body of knowledge on crowdfunding (CF) motivational patterns with special reference to intangible factors, which most scholars assume to be the most important ones, especially in non-investment-based CF. The purpose is to understand how the presence of an established brand in a CF campaign can affect backers’ funding choices and the reasons behind them. To this end, the authors combine principles from identification, brand relationship and self-determination theories.

The authors considered the (altruistic in nature) domain of CF for social causes as the most widespread type of branded CF and chose the relevant empirical setting of “research CF” run by universities which seem to be more and more interested in connecting branding and fundraising efforts through the active involvement of their “relational circles”. Accordingly, the authors surveyed an extensive sample of students as a primary stakeholder group of potentially engaged backers from one of the first Italian universities to launch a CF program and used structural equation modelling to test the research hypotheses.

The authors found that, despite the CF domain considered, the choices made by backers (counterintuitively, women, in particular) manifest themselves as mostly self-oriented. This is partly explained by brand identification, which fully mediates the effect of brand pride and partially mediates the effect of brand respect (BR) on funding intention. Moreover, BR also directly drives CF choices.

This study portrays a remarkably different CF playground compared with conventional campaigns for both project proponents and backers with several theoretical and managerial implications.