Charitable fundraising: Gaining donors' trust on online platforms

• Main Author: SULAEMAN, Deserinas
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2017
• Subjects: Charity; trust; reputation; fundraising; crowdfunding; Databases and Information Systems; Management Information Systems
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/3962; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/4964/viewcontent/CharitableFundraising_CSWIM_2017_pv.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Trust is crucial in the relationships between charitable fundraisers and potential donors. This study examines factors that can help fundraisers gain potential donors’ trust, which is crucial to the success of the campaigns. Examining charitable fundraising campaigns on an online platform, this study finds that trust issues can be mitigated by providing a campaign description that is more sophisticated, more informative, and with fewer errors. Additionally, setting a higher campaign funding goal tends to lead to a more successful campaign. These characteristics likely reflect a competent, committed, and passionate fundraiser. On the other hand, mere exposure to a wide set of potential donors through social media is not necessarily useful for mitigating information asymmetry. Instead, close relationships between fundraisers and potential donors may be more meaningful in this regard.