Joining the Crowd: The Impact of Social Information in Crowdfunding Campaigns

Philanthropic crowdfunding is an online funding method with a growing popularity. In this study we quantify the effects of information about the donation behavior of previous donors, also known as social information. We report results from a large natural field experiment among visitors (n = 23,676) of a crowdfunding platform advertising campaigns for artists and nonprofit organizations in the field of arts and culture. Visitors who were exposed to a reminder about the average donation amount of previous donors were not more likely to donate than visitors who were not exposed to this information. Neither did visitors who decided to donate give higher amounts