Cultural Effect in Donation-based Crowdfunding Campaigns

This research examines culture's influence on the effectiveness of persuasive cues in donation-based crowdfunding campaigns. Self-focused description has shown to decrease willingness to donate as soliciting donation for self is likely to trigger more deliberation, entailing suspicion for self-gain or greediness. In contrast, self-focused description with the use of “I” has also been shown to be an effective narration technique to trigger sympathy and increase donations. Given the mixed findings, the study reveals that cultural differences significantly moderated the effect of self-focused descriptions on fundraising. Using text analysis software LIWC, we analyzed data from Taiwanese and American donation-crowdfunding websites. Our results showed the use of I has a positive effect in high-context culture (Taiwan), but a negative effect in low-context (United States) cultures. Website features played a vital role to gain trust in the high-context culture. Once trust is built, the use of I triggers sympathy in the narrative. In contrast, campaign description played a critical role in low-contexture culture to gain trust. The self-focused description triggers more deliberation and susception. Our findings offer both theoretical advancements and practical recommendations for crafting effective crowdfunding messages tailored to different cultural contexts.