Motives for giving via crowdfunding in eight categories: A review and theoretical framework of donation- and reward-based crowdfunding motives

Many philanthropic (i.e., donation- and reward-based) crowdfunding projects fail to assemble enough funding to succeed. We consider a review focused on developing a theoretical framework an essential next step to assist practitioners and academics in implementing and understanding philanthropic crowdfunding. Which key motives are central for donating via crowdfunding? We developed a framework which is a mix of the empirical findings reported in the 237 studies researching philanthropic crowdfunding. We integrated the empirical insights with theories from social psychology and behavioral economics. We propose a theoretical framework with eight categories: (1) altruism, (2) psychological benefits, (3) material benefits, (4) relational aspects, (5) central narrative, (6) perceived quality, (7) solicitation and (8) innovation. The categorisation of motives for giving via crowdfunding adds to an emerging area of research. It allows initiators to extract best practice examples for increasing the probability of successful crowdfunding projects considering the key influencing factors of personal motives for giving.