Anonymity in COVID-19 Online Donations: A Cross-Cultural Analysis on Fundraising Platforms

Abstract

Donating money anonymously is often perceived as an act of altruism in Western culture and a similar concept of ‘ikhlas’ (sincerity) in Indonesia. Yet, this prosocial behavior can also be utilized to cope with unpleasant feelings associated with such donations (e.g., fear of social judgment, guilt) making it otherwise a rather self-serving act. In that regard, we analyzed 20,000 individual donation transactions made for COVID-19 campaigns on two popular fundraising platforms: GoFundMe in the United States and Kitabisa in Indonesia. We found that GoFundMe donors tended to self-identify (33.18% opted for anonymity) while Kitabisa donors tended to conceal their identities (73.89% opted for anonymity). Adjusting the donations to the fractions of GDPs, we further found that anonymous donors on Kitabisa donated significantly less amounts of money (M =.11, SD =.54) in contrast to their self-identified counterparts (M =.26, SD = 3.63), who donated even higher amounts of money than anonymous donors on GoFundMe (M =.16, SD =.66). Even though the amount of money may not always entail the rate of altruism nor ikhlas, the significant findings bring the cultural belief associated with such anonymous donations into questions.