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Crowdfunding has become a popular and achievable means of funding projects worldwide. The purpose of this study is to determine which personal and social traits can increase individuals’ intention to participate in crowdfunding.

This study examines innovativeness, attitudes toward helping others and interpersonal connectivity as determinants of consumers’ intention to participate in crowdfunding. Social identification with the crowdfunding community is proposed as a mediator in the model.

The results show that both social identification with the crowdfunding community and innovativeness have a positive effect on intention to participate. In addition, attitudes toward helping others and interpersonal connectivity indirectly affect intention to participate in crowdfunding through social identification with the crowdfunding community.

This study analyzes a general audience of potential crowdfunders; therefore, the results identify just the indications for potential intentions to participate in crowdfunding activities.

Companies or fund-seekers currently using or expecting to use crowdfunding have to develop strategies focused on promoting social identification with the crowdfunding community. More effort should be devoted for developing consumers’ social relationships and ties within the crowdfunding community.

This study contributes to the literature by clarifying the characteristics that potential crowdfunders should have to be more prone to participate in these types of projects.

El crowdfunding se ha convertido en un medio popular y factible de financiar proyectos en todo el mundo. El objetivo principal de este estudio es determinar qué características personales y sociales pueden aumentar la intención de los individuos de participar en el crowdfunding.

Esta investigación examina la capacidad de innovación, las actitudes hacia ayudar a los demás y la conectividad interpersonal como determinantes de la intención de los consumidores de participar en el crowdfunding. La identificación social con la comunidad de crowdfunding se propone como un mediador en el modelo.

Los resultados muestran que tanto la identificación social con la comunidad de crowdfunding y la capacidad de innovación tienen un efecto positivo en la intención de participar en proyectos de crowdfunding. Además, las actitudes hacia ayudar a los demás y la conectividad interpersonal afectan indirectamente la intención de participar en el crowdfunding a través de la identificación social con la comunidad de crowdfunding.

Esta investigación analiza una audiencia general de posibles “crowdfunders”, por lo tanto, los resultados identificaron solo indicaciones de intenciones potenciales para participar en actividades de crowdfunding.

Las empresas o emprendedores que actualmente usan o esperan usar el crowdfunding como método de financiación, deben desarrollar estrategias enfocadas en promover la identificación social con la comunidad de crowdfunding; así como fomentar el desarrollo de las relaciones y las relaciones sociales de los consumidores dentro de la comunidad de crowdfunding.

Esta investigación contribuye a la literatura explicando las características sociales y personales de los individuos que con más propensión participarían en este tipo de proyectos.

The accounting profession has recognized the need to increase pro bono (free) tax preparation services. Increased pro bono tax preparation services by accountants may address a growing unmet need for free tax preparation services by low-income taxpayers in the United States. One way to foster commitment to free services in the profession is by equipping accounting students with the knowledge and skills necessary to effectively serve low-income taxpayers in preparing their returns. We examined whether accounting students who provided free tax preparation services to low-income taxpayers as part of a service-learning course would experience significant changes in volunteering attitudes and motivation to offer free representation of low-income taxpayers in the future. The service-learning course was tied to the federal Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program. Results from traditional pretest/posttest and retrospective pretest/posttest found participants reported significant increases in volunteering attitudes, the role of accounting in addressing social issues, attitudes toward helping others, and motivation and competence to offer future free representation of low-income taxpayers. Also, most participants reported positive experiences in the VITA clinic and further developed skills important to the accounting profession. Qualitative data supported the quantitative results.

This study aims to investigate the intentions of individuals’ monetary charity during the COVID-19 crisis in Kuwait. The new conditions of COVID-19 enhanced both the theoretical as well as empirical importance of understanding how charities canalize monetary donations toward those in need.

An initial framework is developed based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to conceptualize how an individual’s intention of donating money to charitable organizations is realized in their behaviors. A cross-sectional study of 276 donors is conducted.

Explained variance gained is 0.73% suggesting that during the pandemic, donors are financially able to donate and prioritize easily accessible channels to transfer monetary charity. Donor attitudes towards charitable organizations were found to be insignificant regardless of the mismanagement reported.

This study importantly discusses public behavior toward charities during the pandemic and suggests policies for managing such charities during a pandemic for optimizing their effectiveness.

This paper used a contemporary context to measure behavioral intentions including attitude (attitude toward making a financial donation, attitude toward charitable organizations and the attitude toward helping others), perceived behavioral control, descriptive norms, moral norms, injunctive/prescriptive norms and past behavior and thus enhance the empirical base of the TPB.

Crises threaten the operations of small businesses and endanger their survival; however, when the crisis is not attributable to the firm, consumers may rally around the business. This study aims to examine how attitudes toward helping others can create support for small businesses, which in turn can direct consumers to help businesses with increased financial support. It is hoped that this paper will inform how consumers will help firms pivot during crises.

A conceptual model was proposed which linked support for helping others to increased willingness to tip/amount tipped. The model was tested using structural equation modeling from two surveys given to customers of two small businesses, a coffee shop and an independent movie theater, respectively.

During a crisis, support for helping others has a positive impact on feelings of support for small businesses. Consumers direct their support to small businesses that they are interested in seeing survive and continue operations. They either tip more or tip when they otherwise would not have tipped.

Firms that pivot their operations because of a crisis imposed on them can still generate revenues. Consumers who have a self-interest in the continuing operations of the firm want to support it, and by pivoting their business model, the firm gives consumers the opportunity to give the firm and its employees more than they would have in the form of tips.

Prior work in crisis management has focused primarily on how firms recover and respond to a crisis of their doing. Overwhelmingly, consumers have been shown to punish firms during times of crisis. However, for a crisis that is imposed on the firm, consumers may rally behind the firm and respond by supporting it more than they are required to.

The purpose of this study is to examine the usefulness of disgust imagery in a nonprofit organization context as one part of the broader social marketing paradigm.

An experiment was conducted in the child victim segment of the market using disgust and nondisgust images. Data were collected from 167 subjects via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Dependent variables measured included donation intention, empathy and guilt. Control variables included religiosity and attitude toward helping others, along with demographic factors.

MANCOVA results indicate that while the disgust image evoked greater empathy, the nondisgust image evoked greater donation intentions. The disgust image had a nonsignificant effect on the level of guilt felt by subjects. Mediation analysis indicates that empathy serves as a competitive mediator for the disgust–donation intentions relationship.

This study examines the effects of disgust images on empathy, guilt and donation intentions. Although the findings indicate a contrasting effect of disgust on empathy and donation intentions, more research is needed to validate these findings with diverse samples, contexts and various donation behavior measures. Regarding charitable giving, the current findings suggest caution should be used when using disgust images to evoke empathy, as the tactic may also negatively affect donation intentions.

Nonprofits that effectively apply marketing can change individual and community behavior. To continue their work, they rely on donors and volunteers. This study provides social marketers.

Past research has demonstrated the effectiveness of disgust appeals for deterring behavior. In contrast, this research provides unique insights into disgust appeals as a catalyst for motivating behavior. This research provides a much-needed empirical evaluation of disgust appeals in a social marketing context.

The rapid outbreak of coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) has triggered unprecedented restrictions on not only human movement but also a wide sphere of economic activities, disrupting livelihood, welfare and business worldwide. In response, some Muslim communities have launched fundraising campaigns to mitigate the socio-economic impacts of the virus on the front-liners and the most affected segments of vulnerable populations. The purpose of this study is to explore the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of donors to these campaigns who contribute via social media platforms (SMPs).

This study adopts a cross-sectional research design using an online survey conducted in a typical Muslim community such as Kuwait. A total of 565 samples of data (356 women, 209 men) were used for analysis. Partial least squares-structural equation modeling was used to estimate the research model and extract meaningful conclusions.

The results show that charitable projects, internet technology features, SMP features and religiosity are significant motivations that influence attitudes toward online donations related to COVID-19 response. All these relationships are indirectly related to intentions to donate via SMP through a significant mediating effect of attitude.

The outcome of this study could support the efforts of governments, non-profit organizations and communities to focus attention on suitable proactive strategies to boost online fundraising campaigns for those affected by epidemic diseases.

This study enriches the literature by integrating both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of online donations into a new and unique related context such as SMP, especially amid the COVID-19 crisis.

This work aims to use equity theory to explore how consumers assess prosocial actions as part of a mental portfolio of purchases and behaviors in a broader marketplace, seeking balance in market exchanges. Conceptualizing marketing exchange as both an exchange of perceived value and a balance between self- and collective-interest allows for segmentation by consumer sensitivity to equity and sheds light on why prosocial consumption might occur.

Two studies validate and segment consumers via their equity sensitivity. Between-subject designs with samples of consumers and marketing managers validate an equity sensitivity index that segments how people balance self- and collective-interests in marketplace exchange and predicts prosocial consumption choices.

The results indicate that Entitled decision makers are more willing to exchange collective-interest for self-interest and emphasize choices that maximize lower prices for consumers or greater profits for firms in lieu of prosocial outcomes. Benevolent decision makers, however, are more willing to exchange self-interest for collective-interest and support prosocial outcomes.

This work moves beyond research that focuses on attitudes, values and situational factors, instead using equity theory to uncover broader marketplace motivations for prosocial consumption. The research reveals that a motivating force behind prosocial consumption is how much consumers perceive they have given to, and gotten, from, the marketplace. Segmenting the market according to how consumers balance gains and losses provides an alternate approach to studying prosocial consumption, as well as a practical approach to developing targeted marketing strategies.

Cause-related marketing (CRM) is a sales strategy that is used to improve the success of a product by including a donation to a charitable cause in its price. While marketers can present CRM donations to consumers as either absolute amounts or percentages, the predominant practice in marketing is to use the latter. As the influence of such presentation formats is not well understood, the purpose of this paper is to systematically examine their effects while taking into account the numerical ability (numeracy) of the consumers.

In two experiments, the presentation format of the donation amounts (absolute vs percentage) were manipulated and individual differences in numeracy were measured. The product type (hedonic vs utilitarian) and sales price were varied. We found this effect for high and low price levels and for hedonic and utilitarian products.

The results of both experiments consistently supported the hypothesis presented in this paper that for people with lower numeracy, their purchase intentions were higher when absolute donation amounts were presented. We found this effect for high and low price levels and for hedonic and utilitarian products.

The present paper shows that the current practice of presenting donations in percentages is inferior to presenting donations in absolute amounts because a large number of consumers have trouble interpreting percentages appropriately. Therefore, it indicates that the default option for marketing managers should be to present donations in absolute amounts for hedonic and utilitarian products with low and high prices.

A substantial, albeit scattered, body of research evidence is accumulating in the cause-related marketing (CRM) research stream. Thus, there is a need of a systematic overview of extant literature to map and holistically understand the CRM domain.

To address this issue and make progress in this important area, the authors systematically review and critically examine the state of academic research on CRM.

Based on a systematic review of 105 journal articles published over the past 30 years, the results reveal that CRM research is a vibrant and rapidly growing domain in the broader marketing field. This assessment exercise also shows that the current state of knowledge about CRM is characterized by persisting knowledge gaps, conflicting empirical results, theoretical inconsistencies, as well as by the absence of international marketing research on the CRM domain.

Therefore, the authors critically evaluate the extant CRM research with the aim of increasing its coherence, quality, scope, impact and international dimension. Based on this evaluation, the authors develop an ambitious research agenda that addresses a number of promising research paths embracing different international perspectives. Finally, the authors discuss the contributions to the literature and the implications for both academics and practitioners.

Child sponsorship programs have been accused of representing children in the developing world in a manner described as “development porn”. The purpose of this paper is to take an historical approach to investigating the use of advertising techniques by Plan Canada, a subsidiary of one of the oldest and largest child sponsorship‐based non‐governmental development agencies, Plan International, during the 1970s. This time period represents an important era in international development and a time of significant change in the charitable giving and advertising industries in Canada.

The authors conduct a content analysis on an archival collection of 468 print advertisements from the 1970s.

A description of the “typical” Plan Canada fund‐raising ad is presented and shown to be different, in several aspects, from other advertisements of the time period. It was determined that Plan Canada's advertisement did not cross the delicate line between showing the hardship and realities of life in the developing world for these children and what became known as “development porn”.

There has been little previous research which focuses specifically on the design of charity advertisements. This paper presents a historically contextualized description of such ads, providing a baseline for further research. It also raises important questions regarding the portrayal of the “other” in marketing communications and the extent to which aid agencies must go to attract the attention of potential donors.