Financial return of crowdfunding platforms: are funding trends and success rates changing in the Covid-19 era?

Abstract

The online crowdfunding platforms become the main way of nonprofits to raise funds during the COVID-19 pandemic, due to lockdown and social and physical distancing policies. One year after the beginning of the current global health pandemic, this study applies quantitative methods for providing results on the evolution of the amounts donated for nonprofits’ projects through an online crowdfunding platform, comparing the success rates of the campaigns during COVID-19 pandemic with financial results in previous years. Moreover, this study focusses on the determinants of financial return of the campaigns, investigating the amount of funding goals and the text features used for describing the crowdfunding campaign. The findings open up further investigations on the financial strategy applied by nonprofits during crises.