Crowdfunding: Why People are Motivated to Participate

ELIZABETH M. GERBER, Northwestern University

JULIE S. HUI, Northwestern University
PEI-YI KUO, Northwestern University

Crowdfunding is changing the way creative individuals and novice entrepreneurs solicit resources
to realize new ideas. With the advent of online platforms, crowdfunding provides a new way to
harness resources from the crowd for people with limited access to capital. With the increasing
number of crowdfunded projects, it is becoming more imperative to understand what drives people
to create and support these projects because they influence how, why, and which ideas are brought
into existence. To address this issue, we present a grounded theory of motivation informed by the
first cross-platform qualitative study of the crowdfunding community. By performing semi-
structured interviews, we uncover six creator and four supporter motivations. Creator motivations
include the desire to expand awareness of work and to maintain control, and funder motivations
include the desire to support like-minded individuals and be part of a community. We also address
potential deterrents to crowdfunding participation, such as time commitment to be a creator and
fear of not receiving a reward for funders. This research is presented in the broader theoretical
context of motivational crowdwork, which we define as the investigation of motivation as it relates
to online work with the crowd. We end with the presentation of five design principles that satisfy
participatory motivations in order to inform the design of effective crowdfunding platforms.

Categories and Subject Descriptors: C.2.2 [Computer-Communication Networks]: Network Protocols

General Terms: crowdfunding, crowdfunding, motivation, fundraising, social lending, micro lending,
online community, crowdsourcing, innovation, work practices
Additional Key Words and Phrases:
DOI = 10.1145/0000000.0000000 [Link]

1. INTRODUCTION
The vision of crowdfunding is to harness resources from the crowd to support projects with
limited access to traditional capital [7]. Crowdfunding is defined as the request for financial
resources on and offline in exchange for a reward offered by the creator, such as an
acknowledgment, an experience, or a product [8]. To realize this vision, crowdfunding platforms
use web technologies and existing online payment systems to facilitate the exchange of resources
between creators (people who request resources) and supporters (people who give resources). We
aim to understand the participatory motivations of both creators and supporters because they
influence how, why, and which products and services are brought into existence.
In this study, we focus specifically on crowdfunding through online platforms, such as
IndieGoGo, Kickstarter, and RocketHub. Currently, there are more than 50 crowdfunding
platforms in the US [33][38]. These platforms, which are experiencing a growth in popularity, are
predicted to grow even more with the recent signing of a crowdfunding law. On April 5, 2012,
President Barack Obama signed the JOBS bill, which will make it easier for companies to
crowdfund by allowing them to raise up to $1 million a year from large groups of small investors
through crowdfunding platforms [32][42]. The bill passed in both the House and Senate with bi-

Northwestern University, Segal Design Institute, Technical Report No. 2 © Gerber, Hui, & Kuo, 2012
partisan support. Such popularity suggests that crowdfunding will soon become a prominent way
for companies to raise money.
Despite crowdfunding’s growing presence on the national stage, few researchers have examined
crowdfunding. Crowdfunding has the potential to fundamentally impact how we function
economically and socially by facilitating the realization of new and innovative products and
services. In this paper, we present the first cross-platform qualitative study to address the
following research question: what motivates creators and supporters to participate in
crowdfunding?
We contribute a grounded theory of motivation and principles of design through a human
computer interaction and computer supported cooperative work perspective. Our results have
important implications for the design of crowdfunding platforms as motivation is informed by
social context [50], and crowdfunding presents a new social context for creators and supporters to
interact. Motivation influences recruitment, retention, and sustainability of online communities
and marketplaces. Our design principles will guide interaction designers to make use of
motivational affordances, the properties of a design that determine whether and how it can support
one’s motivational needs [5], to influence user behavior.
The paper is organized into three sections. The first section sets the stage for this work, discussing
the scope and history of crowdfunding and related research on philanthropic and consumer
behavior, peer-to-peer lending, and peer production. The second section presents our research
findings, identifying motivations from both the creators’ and supporters’ perspectives. The third
section presents emergent design principles and the broader implications of this work.

2. CROWDFUNDING
Crowdfunding is derived from the broader concept of crowdsourcing. The term crowdsourcing
was coined in the June 2006 issue of Wired Magazine by Jeff Howe [22], and has since then been
used to describe the outsourcing of problem solving tasks from a distributed network of
individuals. The goal of crowdfunding is to crowdsource resources for small ventures with limited
access to capital [7]. The majority of today’s widely used crowdfunding platforms were created in
2008 and after to realize this vision.
Soliciting funds from the crowd stands in contrast to traditional fundraising efforts such as
securing funds directly from banks, venture capitalists, and foundations because resources come
from a broad network of individuals rather than a select group of people. While people can solicit
funds from crowds offline by collaborating with a fundraising consultant or through face to face
solicitation, the rise of online payment systems such as Paypal has made it possible for novice
fundraisers to solicit resources directly from their close ties online through a personal website. The
recent growth of mediated online platforms, such as Kickstarter, has enabled these same
fundraisers to reach a broader network of fundraisers. Further, initial successes on crowdfunding
platforms have legitimized the practice and possibility of asking for support from a broad network.
See Table 1 for a typology of online/offline, mediated/un-mediated crowdfunding.

Online Offline
Mediated Crowdfunding platforms Collaborating with fundraising consultant
Un-mediated Personal website Face-to-face solicitation

Table 1: A typology of crowdfunding.

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Online mediated crowdfunded projects span across many fields and vary in scope, from a
filmmaker seeking $30,000 to produce a documentary, to a product designer needing $10,000 to
manufacture a new style of bicycle, to a PhD student looking for $1,000 to pay for DNA testing
equipment. Recognition for supporters vary from having one’s name acknowledged in the movie
credits, to getting a new bicycle, to receiving a simple “thank you” email. In all cases, creators
own the intellectual property.
In order to participate in an established mediated crowdfunding platform, creators develop a
profile on a crowdfunding platform to explain who they are, their project goals, planned use of the
funds, and timeline for reaching their goals. For example, two friends with an idea but no
connection to capital raised $306,944 in 37 days to develop a coffee accessory on a crowdfunding
platform [28]. In the process of crowdfunding, they developed an innovative coffee warming
product, marketed the product, managed customers and finances, and delivered the final product to
supporters. The creators then mailed the coffee accessory to supporters who pledged $40 or more
after the fundraising goal was achieved.
The platforms differ in their use of terminology referring to people who request funds as
“creators,” “creatives,” “designer,” “inventor,” or “activists” [3][34][35]. People who pledge
funds are referred to as “backers,” “fuelers,” or “funders” [3][34][35]. When describing the results
from our qualitative study, we refer to people who provide resources as “supporters,” and people
who request funds as “creators.”

Furthermore, different platforms employ different funding models. Kickstarter uses an All-or-
Nothing funding model, which means that if a funding goal is not reached, funds are returned to
the supporters and the creator receives no funds [28]. The success rate is 43% [62]. RocketHub
and IndieGoGo adopt the All & More fundraising system where creators can keep the money they
raise even though their funding goals are not achieved [49] [23]. If the goal is reached, all
platforms require the creators to pay a platform usage fee (between 3-5%) and payment processing
fee (between 3-5%) for an established online payment processing system, such as Amazon
Payments or Paypal [28][49][23].

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Figure 1: Supporter donating funds and making comments on the creator’s progress on a
crowdfunding platform.

3. BACKGROUND RESEARCH
In this section, we discuss related research on philanthropic behavior and online philanthropic
platforms, consumer behavior and e-commerce, online peer-to-peer lending, and online peer
production and the differences and similarities to crowdfunding. We draw from research in
psychology, marketing management, economics, information science, and human computer
interaction.

3.1 Philanthropic Behavior and Online Philanthropic Platforms

Researchers seek to understand why people give or do not give resources to philanthropic
initiatives. Psychologists who investigate why certain people are motivated to give financial and
social capital identify factors such as feeling sympathy and empathy toward the cause [48], feeling
guilty for not giving [10], and strengthening identity [1] and social status [6][19]. The framing of
the request can also influence the amount of the donation [34]. For example, in laboratory and
field studies, researchers found that people will ultimately donate more money to a charity if first
asked how much time they would like to donate versus how much money they would like to
donate [34]. Management scholars find that non-profit organizations are motivated to fundraise
online because it allows for the easy and safe transfer of funds online from donors (Water, 2007).
Collectively, this research suggests that motivations for philanthropic giving and receiving online
are related to interpersonal connections and interactive communication between the donors and the
requester.

Similar to online philanthropic platforms, such as those used by National Public Radio, supporters
are given the opportunity to receive a “thank you” gift in return for their donation – suggesting
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that donations are often accompanied by “rewards.” However, unlike online philanthropic
platforms, creators on crowdfunding platforms are required to offer a “thank you” gift to
participate on the platform.

3.2 Consumer Behavior and E-Commerce

Researchers seek to understand why people buy or do not buy goods and services. Psychologists
and marketing scholars find that goals, information and affective processing, involvement [29],
and perceptions of choice [24] drive the consumer decision process. Information systems and
management scholars find that consumers are motivated to purchase online based on perceived
internet security and navigation functionality [9] [29] [54][39]. Economists find that novice
internet users make purchase decisions based on brand recognition, but become less trusting of
brands as they become more proficient with internet searching [59].

Similar to e-commerce, crowdfunding platforms allow supporters to safely and easily exchange
financial resources for a particular product, service, or experience again and again. Unlike on e-
commerce platforms, such as on [Link], crowdfunding supporters often pay to receive a
product many weeks or months prior to its production.

3.3 Online Peer-to-Peer Lending

Researchers seek to understand why people participate in peer-to-peer lending, in which
individuals bid on microloans sought by individual borrowers. Like crowdfunding, few peer-to-
peer lending sites existed before 2005, and thus scholarly research on motivations for peer-to-peer
lending is limited. Scholars of information science and computer science find people are more
likely to lend money to peers who share reputable hard information in their extended network [33],
such as those with a good credit score [45]. These researchers find that soft information, such as
personal information, leads to a more positive perception of the borrower, but it is not enough to
reduce borrowing interest rates [45]. In addition, scholars find that people seeking funds on peer-
to-peer lending sites, strengthen financial identities by making complex financial decisions [43].

Like peer-to-peer lenders, supporters on crowdfunding platforms take a financial risk when giving
money to a project creator. Unlike peer-to-peer lending sites, supporters do not expect to be repaid
monetarily.

3.4 Online Peer Production

Human computer interaction researchers seek to understand motivations for online peer
production for crowdsourced platforms such as Wikipedia. By understanding motivations for
voluntary participation, researchers seek to leverage the collective intelligence of the crowd to
tackle the world’s problems [35]. Scholars have identified motivations for contributing to online
communities including a desire to learn, increase social standing, peer companionship, approval,
desire to improve society, and to be autonomous [30]. Drawing on the social sciences, scholars
have proposed principles such as recruiting and clustering similar others to increase identity based
commitment to motivate the formation of online peer production including integrating newcomers,
encouraging commitment over time and coordinating contributions to maximize benefits for the
community [47].

While this research has highlighted the critical role of recruiting and retaining members of
voluntary and “free” online communities primarily organized around knowledge sharing, few
researchers have examined the role of recruiting and retention in the crowdunding context which is
characterized by the sharing of information and financial resources in exchange for rewards.

Like communities built on peer production, we expect that crowdfunding platforms must rely on
similar strategies to motivate creator and funder participation. Unlike peer-production platforms,
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such as Wikipedia [61], participants seek funding rather than cognitive resources to complete a
task.

3.5 Existing Crowdfunding Research

Despite the growing popularity of crowdfunding, only a handful of economists, management, and
legal scholars have pursued research in this domain. Economists have studied consumer behavior
and how consumers make choices among products and services. For instance, they have examined
the advantages of crowdfunding such as menu pricing and extracting a larger share of the
consumer surplus, and disadvantages of crowdfunding such as constraining the choices of prices
to attract a large number of supporters [7]. Management scholars have found that crowdfunding
eliminates the effects of distance from supporters whom creators did not previously know [2], and
that crowdfunding participation is governed more by peer effects than network externalities [58].
Legal scholars differentiate between “ex post facto crowdfunding,” defined as funding a
completed product, and “ex ante crowdfunding,” funding to achieve a future desired result [27].
To date, economists and management scholars have focused on how crowdfunding impacts the
consumer market, while legal scholars focus on how crowdfunding impacts campaign strategy.
Despite the link between motivation and contributions to online communities [30], few HCI
scholars have investigated motivations for crowdfunding through online platforms. In a 2010
study, Lambert and Schwienbacher analyzed results from a questionnaire taken by 21
entrepreneurs, only 3 of whom used an online platform to crowdfund [31]. The remaining 18
entrepreneurs used personal websites and other online social media tools to raise funds. Lambert
and Schwienbacher concluded that entrepreneurs were motivated to raise money, get public
attention, and obtain feedback. In addition, Schwienbacher and Larralde also performed a case
study of one company that raised money using crowdfunding techniques [53]. Through one
interview with the company founder and a survey questionnaire taken by company supporters,
Schwienbacher and Larralde concluded that the creator participated in crowdfunding not only to
raise funds, but also to expand his network, while funders expressed the desire to partake in the
“exciting adventure of building a startup” and also to expand their network with other supporters.
Our work expands this work by validating these findings, presenting nuanced details, and
identifying additional motivations for creators (the desire to maintain control and to learn) and
supporters (the desire to collect a reward, to help others, and to support causes).

3.6 Study design

While scholars have studied philanthropic and consumer behavior, peer-to-peer lending, and peer
production, this is the first qualitative empirical study to examine the intersection of these related
threads of research through a cross-platform crowdfunding perspective. We discuss our study
approach to understanding motivations for crowdfunding participation.
We took a grounded theory approach [18] to build a theory of motivation by interviewing a larger
and more diverse sample of participants than previous crowdfunding studies. An examination of a
diverse set of participants including all types of creators and supporters from multiple platforms
and project categories in the crowdfunding community is needed to provide a rigorous framework
for why people create and support projects. Gathering contextual details about motivation will
inform our six empirically grounded design principles for crowdfunding.

3.7 Participants
We interviewed 39 US-based participants (14 women) over a seven-month period. Two
participants had exclusively created projects, 10 participants had exclusively funded projects, and
24 participants had both created and funded projects. The final three participants were senior
executives from each of the major platforms considered in this study. Participants completed a

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range of project types, including product design, music, non fiction, art, games, dance, design,
theater, film, and research.

Creator professional expertise ranged from 1 to 15 years of experience. Creators’ ages ranged
from 20 to 37 years old and supporters’ ages ranged from 20 to 56 years old. This sample is
representative of people involved in crowdfunding [33]. Successful creators raised between $1,565
and $84,613. Five did not reach their funding goal. Supporters pledged between $5 and $250 and
contributed to between 1 and 70 projects (3 was the mode). Creators spent 30 minutes to 4 hours a
day on live campaigns and considered projects as work and/or leisure activity.

We selected participants from Kickstarter, RocketHub, and IndieGoGo because they are the most
popular and successful platforms in the US [3]. Participants were recruited through a snowball
method and were not compensated for their participation.

3.8 Procedure
As is typical with grounded theory [18] this study was initiated with open qualitative data collection.
Given the limited research in this domain, we did not want to propose specific hypotheses about what
was to be found and unnecessarily constrain the emergent framework by precisely identifying and
operationalizing variables [18]. The study was framed with a broad research question: What motivates
creators and supporters to participate in crowdfunding?

We used semi-structured interviews to collect data. Each interview began with an explanation of
the method and a description of our research interests in crowdfunding. We explained that we
would be recording and transcribing interviews, and that we were not paid consultants or
evaluators for any crowdfunding platform. We guaranteed that no informants’ names, titles,
project title, or positions would be revealed. We reiterated our commitment to objective recording
and anonymity throughout the data collection.

Our semi-structured interview protocol was divided into three sections. In the first section, we
asked participants about their professional background and how they learned about and became
engaged in crowdfunding. During this time we were trying to establish a rough timeline of the
creator’s or supporter’s experience, which we could use to understand the sequence of actions and
associated motivations. During the second phase, we asked participants to describe their
motivations for using a specific crowdfunding platform. During the third and final phase, we
asked participants how crowdfunding influenced them and their work. We also asked them about
current involvement today and to share any additional comments. The goal of this last phase was
to understand how crowdfunding influenced their work behavior.

The average length of the interview was 30 minutes (with a minimum of 10 minutes and a
maximum of 1 hour and 3 minutes). Thirty-one of the interviews were conducted over Skype or
phone. The remainder of the interviews were conducted face-to-face. All interviews were audio-
recorded and transcribed for analysis immediately following the interviews, resulting in 211 pages
of transcripts. Interviews were conducted at different stages of the funding process (before,
during, and after) to understand if motivations differed over time. The advantage to this research
approach is the ability to collect in situ data, not just reflective data; the disadvantage is that bias is
introduced through self-report and participant observation [56].

3.9 Data Analysis

We employed selective coding and analysis [56] to understand what motivated participation in
crowdfunding. First, we began a process of selective coding in which we flagged each instance
where informants communicated motivation. After identifying all of the instances, we clustered
motivations into conceptual categories. Simultaneously, we researched pertinent literature to

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understand existing theory and uncover related phenomena. Initial data analysis began after 14
interviews. The remaining interviews were used to gather data pertaining to emergent themes [38].
Moving between inductive and deductive thinking, we uncovered motivations for participation. This
iterative process allowed for the development of initial inferences. We reviewed all relevant data and
evaluated the strength of our evidence to inform whether inferences should be modified or abandoned
based on insubstantial evidence.

The next section presents these themes grounded in data collected during the interviews. All
quotations are directly transcribed from interviews without grammatical corrections. We believe
these themes present a grounded theory for why people participate in crowdfunding.

4. FINDINGS
We report findings for why people participate in crowdfunding from both the creator and
supporter perspectives based on evidence from interviews. While we categorize motivations as
distinct from each other, in reality, as with many motivations [46], we suspect that they are inter-
related.

First, we present findings on motivations for creators including a desire to raise funds, expand
awareness of work, connect with others, gain approval, maintain control, and to learn. Second, we
present findings on motivations for supporters including a desire to collect rewards, help others,
support causes and be part of a community.

4.1 Crowdfunding Motivations

4.1.1 Creators: Motivated to Raise Funds

Our findings confirm that creators participate in crowdfunding to raise funds. We provide details
to help us better understand this anticipated motivation. Crowdfunding platforms provide a
legitimate and easy way for creators to receive financial resources from supporters. A creator of a
crowdfunded theatrical production commented:

“[Crowdfunding] was good for us because we didn’t have a way to collect money.”

Not only does crowdfunding provide a way to collect payments online, creators are motivated to
crowdfund because the platforms provide a seamless way to pitch ideas and accept small payments
from a large number of people. As one creator commented:

“Instead of having one or two angel investors or manufacturers, you have like 50,000 micro-
investors.”

A creator of a research project reinforced this perspective:

"I think the basic reason for me to use [crowdfunding] is getting financial support from a lot of
small contributions, which I like, which is different from going and applying for a grant, from…
an organization...It’s satisfying.”

Unlike applying for grants, which are not always approved, certain crowdfunding platforms, such
as IndieGoGo and Rockethub, allow creators to keep whatever amount of money they raise. A
creator described his opportunity to raise money for his research project:

“It was one try, so I’m batting 100% in terms of getting a couple of thousands of dollars.”

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Creators are also motivated by the ability to raise funds efficiently. Creators report that
crowdfunding is less time consuming than some other traditional fundraising methods, such as
holding a fundraising event. A choreographer who raised more than $16,000 through
crowdfunding reported:

“[A fundraising event includes] an auction, entertainment, food, bar, getting the space,
decorations, invitations. All that easily takes 100 hours. The [crowdfunding] campaign took
somewhere between 40-50 hours. There’s no way you could do an event for that little time.”

Another creator of an education project also supported this claim:

“We needed to make a lot of money…in a short period of time, and we didn’t have enough time to
reach out to a foundation, or like, to a grant or whatever. And when we tried to reach out to our
school, they told us we had to fill out a bunch of forms. It was just so convoluted and complex, we
decided…let’s just go straight to people.”

With crowdfunding, creators are not only motivated to raise money quickly, but they are also
motivated to do so in a way representative of supporter interest. A creator noted:

“…It feels…you know, democratic, and people are able to contribute if they want and not to
contribute if they don’t want."

Creators are motivated to participate in crowdfunding because they were able to request and
receive financial support directly from individuals in a broad network. Creators perceived the
method as efficient given their limited time and fair to people in their network who may decide to
give or not give.

4.1.2 Creators: Motivated to Expand Awareness of Work

In addition to raising financial resources, creators are motivated to engage in crowdfunding to
raise awareness of their work. A dance project creator described the usefulness of crowdfunding
for raising funds and getting people to learn about her project:

“[Crowdfunding] is actually a really great way that we got more people to learn about our
project. You do [crowdfunding] to fundraise, but you also do it for marketing to let people see
about your project [sic].”

We found that some creators were motivated to use crowdfunding because of the potential to
receive attention from the popular press. An anthropologist described how she expanded
awareness of her research beyond her academic community:

“CNN covered [my research], and Forbes covered it. And then everything just went crazy after
that... These are things that don’t normally happen if you just have a grant proposal, or you have
an article in the journal, you know, that maybe nobody reads.”

Not only does crowdfunding provide a way to expand awareness of work with family, friends, and
the general public, it is also particularly useful for raising awareness with weak ties within one’s
network [20]. A creator who posted her non-fiction writing project on a crowdfunding platform
commented:

“I really wanted to use it more as a way of sharing the project with a different audience. Most of
the donors are not really like my closest friends. They’re kind of on the outer rings of my
universe.”
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Once people know about a creator’s work, they are more likely to contribute financial resources.
Having many people contribute to a project indicates that awareness of the work is spreading. A
creator of a design project described how donations indicate interest, which is raised through
compelling stories.

”I think the beauty of crowdfunding is just reaching out to normal people and making it easy for
them to latch on to a story. The by-product of latching on is what makes them give money. They
get inspired, and many of the really successful projects are inspiring.”

Creators are motivated to expand awareness of work beyond the strong ties in their network. With
crowdfunding, creators are given the opportunity market their projects to the general public
through popular press and to weak ties who learn about their work through friends of friends.

4.1.3 Creators: Motivated to Connect

In addition to raising funds and expanding awareness of work, our data suggests that creators are
motivated to engage in crowdfunding to connect with people through a long-term interaction that
extends well beyond a single financial transaction. A creator noted his connection with supporters:

“[The funding process] creates a longer-term connection to people that, you know, weeks later,
months later, you’re still interacting, and they are expecting to get something….I think potentially
you can build relationships with people, you know, over the course of time.”

Such long-term interactions allow creators to collaborate directly with supporters, engaging them
in the creative process. One product designer asked his supporters which color binding they
preferred for his winter sports gear product after showing them pictures of the production
prototypes in a project update. A creator of a community design project described her preference
for consumer engagement throughout development. She noted:

“[Participating in crowdfunding] made me realize that I don’t want my projects to be like only
mine. Like, I want others to share in my projects.”

Crowdfunding platforms provide an easy avenue for communication and financial transactions
between creators and a large group of people. For instance, some creators also use crowdfunding
to market and pre-sell their work to an interested community. One creator of a product design
project reported:

“[My partner] already had enough interest that she knew that she wanted to go with
manufacturing. Essentially, we used crowdfunding to generate more preorders.”

In contrast to traditional marketing methods, crowdfunding provides a quick and alternative way
to advertising a product and building a fan base. A creator of a game project explained:

“You’re building this group of people who are very enthusiastic about your idea. It can take years
for a company to develop a fan base, but [with crowdfunding], you get these people who get in on
the ground floor.”

The long-term relationship stands in contrast to the short-term relationship that occurs in many
online financial transactions, such as buying a product on the Amazon marketplace. However, this
desire for social contact and peer companionship is consistent with many online communities that
are not focused on financial transactions, such as online discussion communities [30][46].

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Creators are motivated not only to make connections with their supporters, but also other creators.
One creator described how he uses his crowdfunding experience to connect with similar people:

“There’s definitely…a secret handshake…If you met someone who created a [crowdfunding]
project, you immediately have something to talk about…you can cut through any degree of small
talk and talk about…something you really, truly care about.”

The shared experience of crowdfunding connects creators on and offline, allowing for
opportunities in collaboration and informal learning. An interaction designer describes his
collaborative relationship with other creators online:

“It’s a give and take. Like, they ask me for advice and I look at their projects for advice...Every
week or so, somebody emails me asking questions about [crowdfunding], like, “My project got
rejected by [a crowdfunding platform], how do I redo it?” And I’m like, you need to change this,
this and this ...I can help you with that.”

In summary, creators are motivated to participate in crowdfunding because they can connect
socially with supporters and like-minded people through an extended period of online
engagement. Creators connect through their work, receiving support and mentoring others.

4.1.4 Creators: Motivated to Gain Approval

Evidence suggests that creators are also motivated to participate in crowdfunding to satisfy a
desire for approval – both for the self and for their work. A researcher describes how the
community’s approval increased her confidence through online conversation:

“You sort of wonder if people are going to like you and like your research, and so I definitely got
more confident once people were clearly interested in it and clearly engaging in the dialogue and
supporting me financially.”

In some cases, the desire for approval was a higher priority than the desire for funds. A non-fiction
project creator commented on how community support gave her confidence to complete the
project:

“The funny thing is, I probably gave other people as much money as I’ve just made on this
[crowdfunding] campaign. So, I could have kept that money in my pocket. But, the whole thing is
like, a load of confidence.”

Creators seek funds from a community of people who care not just about the project, but also
about the individual’s success. A crowdfunding executive describes how validation occurs in
crowdfunding:

“You are embedding yourself in an active community…you are being validated…Friends and
families become evangelists for you…You have people saying, I believe in you.”

People’s beliefs in their ability increase when they have successful experiences and receive public
recognition of their success [36]. A design project creator confirms the executive’s assertions by
describing his sense of joy from the support he received:

“It’s one of those situations where I am completely blown away at the amount of support…over
the past two days…I was not expecting to raise $8,800 dollars in a little under 48 hours. That’s
flatly ludicrous to me.”

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Online encouragement and financial backing supports perceptions of approval, which strengthens
beliefs in ability to complete a task [36]. A creator describes how approval of his first project
convinced him to start a second:

“I don’t think I would have been as empowered to go out and do [my second project] so much if I
hadn’t had the success with the first project…It’s all about forging relationships with people and
encouraging them.”

Approval for an idea can also be considered as positive feedback on one’s project. A creator
describes how he uses funding success to determine that his work is worthwhile to pursue:

“I have no idea if people will want [my product]. So like if people don’t want to buy it, and they
don’t like it … there won’t be any. Then I won’t have made them... It’s just an incredible way to
take a risk and it totally, and it’s a totally safe risk to take.”

Creators are motivated to participate in crowdfunding to gain approval for themselves and their
work. The approval comes in the form of monetary backing and evangelism. Unlike other online
communities, monetary backing strengthens validation. Crowdfunding platforms provide a unique
opportunity to satisfy multiple motivations that traditional funding mechanisms, such as grants and
venture capital funding, and online social communities, do not necessarily satisfy.

4.1.5 Creators: Motivated to Maintain Control

Furthermore, we find that creators are motivated to participate in crowdfunding to maintain
control over their work. Unlike many traditional fundraising methods, funding is not contingent
upon a select group of people’s preferences. For example, a video game designer explained:

"In game development, the problem is, publishers like Electronic Arts or Bioware or anyone else,
they invest in the developing studios, so they get to say what they do, and they also get creative
control over a lot of stuff because of the contracts they sign. And this way [crowdfunding], it's the
gamer that decides which projects they want to do, what they want the developer to do, and that's
a big deal for us because we never had a say in any of it before. It's usually the guys with the
billions of dollars that make all the decisions for us."

Before crowdfunding, creators often had to trade project control for funding and other benefits
associated with working under a large label. Now that crowdfunding provides an alternative way
to raise funds, creators have more freedom in deciding which development route to take. However,
autonomy may come at a cost. One non-fiction project creator described the tradeoffs he made to
maintain control of his work:

"Creative control [and] editorial control... You gain those in self-publishing, but you’re trading
marketing, an entrenched network of contacts, trustworthiness from being associated with an
established label ...I prefer the tradeoffs that I’ve taken for what I’m giving away."

Our findings suggest that maintaining control over one’s project is often more valuable than
established networks, marketing effort, and institutional legitimacy. Another non-fiction project
creator expressed similar sentiments about keeping creative control over his book format:

“I had a firm idea what kind of book I wanted to publish. I wanted my book to be high quality.
Other publishers wanted my book to be a cheap paperback format. That was not what I wanted.”

Furthermore, maintaining control gives people confidence in their ability to accomplish a task on
their own. A creator of a food project described the exhilaration of working on her own terms:
Northwestern University, Segal Design Institute, Technical Report No. 2 © Gerber, Hui, & Kuo, 2012
"It was this whole fearless approach...It just kind of made me feel like, I can do anything, and I
should do anything. Like, no one should be held back by you know, whatever. That was the first
lesson for me, was just going for what I wanted with the support of the community with me."

Creators are motivated to participate to maintain control– making choices about the direction of
the work. Autonomy supports feelings of competence and allows creators to execute their project
true to their vision.

4.1.6 Creators: Motivated to Learn

Having control over a crowdfunding campaign forces creators to gain experience in areas outside
their professional expertise. Although creators did not initially report being motivated to learn,
those who had completed campaigns, both successes and failures, were motivated to participate
again to improve skills to fundraise effectively, such as marketing, management, risk-taking, and
financial planning. As one creator noted:

“I went to art school. I went to graduate school. We didn’t have one single class on fundraising.
We didn’t have anything on business at all. And I just think if you’re going to make it as an artist,
… it’s also about being persistent and strategic. [Crowdfunding] is a really do-able way to really
practice and hone [entrepreneur] skills.”
In addition to getting hands-on business experience, crowdfunding also offers a key source of
feedback that helps everyday people learn about the novelty and usefulness of their ideas in
addition to providing a platform for implementation. Posting a project on a crowdfunding platform
requires creators to address a general audience. An informant explains how posting on a
crowdfunding platform required her to learn how to frame her work for different audiences to
attract attention:
“I really think [crowdfunding] helped me communicate with the public and get them interested in
my work.”
To communicate this work, informants learn new forms of communication in which they did not
have prior experience. A creator reported enjoying her learning experience:
“I’ve never made a video before for my research…it was really a lot of fun, so I really enjoyed
that. That was not something I had ever done before.”
Creators also learn what kind of language to use in their pitch. One informant noted:
“I learned all of those tips about, you know, keeping things very progressive sounding, and
keeping the vocabulary very positive vs. desperate.”
Informants reported the usefulness of learning new ways of communicating in order to reach a
larger audience. Each of these creators described how they plan to utilize these learned business
and communication strategies in the future if they started another campaign.

Overall, creators are motivated to participate in crowdfunding to raise funds, expand awareness of
their work, connect with others, gain approval for their work and themselves, maintain project
control and learn new skills. Overall, crowfunding platforms provide a unique opportunity to
satisfy multiple motivations that traditional funding mechanisms do not necessarily satisfy. The
next section reports findings of the research on supporters, those who provide resources to the
creators.

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4.1.7 Supporters: Motivated to Collect
One motivation of supporters in crowdfunding communities is the desire to collect external
rewards such as an acknowledgment, a tangible artifact, or an experience. An acknowledgment
may come in the form of a telephone call, while a tangible artifact may be a CD or gadget. An
experience may involve, for instance, meeting with the creator. The creators’ goal is to provide
rewards that satisfy the supporters’ desire to collect. A person who funded an iPad accessory
describes his anticipation to use his future reward (the accessory):

“I like to buy things that I can play with.”

Many supporters refer to the transaction as “buying” and “getting,” suggesting that crowdfunding
shares some elements with the consumer experience. However, unlike most transactions in the
formal economy, supporters give money and then wait for several weeks or months before
receiving their reward. Waiting is a common practice in the informal economy, which refers to
the sector of the economy that is not taxed or monitored by any form of government. For
example, a person may pay their friend to create a custom bike frame in their garage and wait
months before receiving the frame. The supporter puts forth funds prior to product creation,
trusting that the creator will deliver on his promise.

Even though supporters may delay gratification, they are motivated to increase their funding
amount to get a desired reward. This suggests that supporters are aware of the value of the
product, service, or experience that they will receive in exchange for their financial support. A
supporter who contributed funds to a documentary film project commented:

“I’m not going to give them 5 dollars, I’m going to give them 10 dollars because 5 more dollars
will give me a high definition download of this film. That’s worth it.”

Supporters exhibit consumer behavior, expressing interest in receiving a reward in exchange for
giving money. However, the fact that they are willing to pay prior to reward creation and wait
weeks or months sets this type of transaction apart from formal consumer transactions.

4.1.8 Supporters: Motivated to Help Others

While many supporters are motivated to collect, others are motivated to “give.” This behavior
resembles philanthropic behavior. Supporters express a strong desire to help creators with whom
they have a personal or extended connection. One supporter explained:

“I’ve funded projects where I have a personal connection to the person making the appeal.”

When posting projects on crowdfunding platforms, creators learned about supporters who had
wanted to support them but previously weren’t able to do so. A creator of an oceanography
research project noted:

“It turns out that there were a lot of friends and family that wanted to support what I was doing
and didn’t have an avenue to do so. [Crowdfunding] provided an avenue.”

Yet, the connection to the creator is not always personal. In one example, the keyboardist of the
British band, Marillion, explained to his fans that the band could not embark on a US tour for lack
of funds. In response, the fans created a crowdfunding campaign and raised more than $60,000 to
fund the tour [55]. Fans contributed both effort and funds to help the creators.

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Evidence also suggests that supporters are willing to prioritize others at their own expense to help
a friend in need. A supporter described how she decided to monetarily support her friends even
though she had low financial resources:

“After having lost my job in May, I haven’t had any extra money whatsoever. I hardly have five
dollars to my name... But, for the most part, if a friend is in need I’ll try to help him out as best as
I can.”

Supporters are also willing to support people with whom they are weakly tied. One supporter who
supported a journalism project stated:

“It’s [my friend’s] brother, I’ll just give him some money. Like, that will be nice…I think they
were pretty close to their goal, but they hadn’t quite reached it at that point.”

Supporters report the desire to help creators who are close to their funding goal in hopes that they
make a meaningful impact. A supporter describes his desire to help a friend who wanted to sell his
music album:

“[His project] was something like $500 short at the time, and I told him, if it doesn’t go over the
number, the day before, I will put the rest of the money in…I’d seen him work so hard on this
material. It was really important to me to make sure that the project got funded.”

If a supporter has a personal connection to a creator, he is also more likely to be aware of the
amount of work the creator has put into the project. Crowdfunding provides supporters with a way
to support creators with unique ideas. One supporter of community design projects reported:

“I like supporting creative people that I feel have authentically good ideas and maybe wouldn’t
get mainstream support from the public. So, they might be doing something unusual...but you can
see that there is something valuable there.”

When projects are successfully funded, the success is shared between creator and supporter.
Supporters are motivated to help others with whom they are strongly and weakly tied. These ties
could be from friendship and/or shared interests.

4.1.9 Supporters: Motivated to Be Part of a Community

In addition to supporting individual creators, crowdfunding also provides a way to feel part of a
community of like-minded people. One serial technology supporter stated:

“There’s definitely a sense of community…some sort of responsibility [to support].”

Supporters express the desire to see evidence of being part of a select group. Crowdfunding
platforms achieve this by listing who has supported a project on the project supporter page. A
supporter of a design project described how she liked seeing herself on this page:

“I was like, oh that’s cool that my picture will be on the [supporter page]. So, that’s neat. I’m part
of this community that’s supporting [this project].”

This page allows supporters to easily see who supported the same project. Being part the project-
supporter community also allows supporters to have a say in the design of the final product. One
supporter of a video game project described his interaction with other supporters in the design
process:

Northwestern University, Segal Design Institute, Technical Report No. 2 © Gerber, Hui, & Kuo, 2012
“[I follow the campaign] fairly closely. I check the [project website] once or twice a day in the
forums and I interact with the community online…Mostly the backers…[We] decide which
direction we feel the game should go.”

This aspect of collaborative design is a unique characteristic of the crowdfunding community.

Supporters also report being motivated to support people that they trust. One supporter described
how this aspect of trust made him feel more comfortable with giving money to unknown others:
“I think that all or almost all [projects] were done by people that I don’t know...There’s
something about the nature of [the crowdfunding] community, I’m a little more willing to trust.”

Trust is a common basis for monetary transactions [15], and crowdfunding platforms are able to
foster trust between supporters and creators and other supporters. Overall, supporters are
motivated to participate in crowdfunding because it provides a visual form of acceptance and gives
them a unique opportunity to interact with and contribute to a like-minded group of people.

4.1.10 Supporters: Motivated to Support a Cause

In addition to supporting creators, crowdfunding supporters are motivated to support causes
analogous with their personal beliefs. When asked what types of projects she funds, a supporter
replied:

“Design to create social impact…My goal is to be as supportive of these initiatives as

possible….From an identity standpoint, that’s something that I would want to be associated with.”

Identity influences what actions people take and why they give [1]. People support efforts that are
consistent with their identity or the identity to which they aspire [1]. Some supporters even decide
to forgo the reward and have 100% of their funds go directly to the project cause. A supporter who
contributed funds to a weather prediction application described his frustration with creators who
spend money on rewards that are not directly inline with the success of the project:

“Don’t spend that money on making t-shirts, spend it on building software…I want to see that my
money is being used well.”

Supporters prioritize motives differently. Although some people are motivated to collect a reward,
others are motivated primarily motivated to support a cause. Some creators consider allowing the
creator to maintain project control as one worthwhile reason to participate in crowdfunding. One
technology supporter reported:

“I really like the idea of people being able to get off the ground without needing to buy into a big
giant corporate structure. And I like the way that people put the ideas they want out instead of
having to compromise those ideas in order to get their product out.”

Supporters are motivated to support non-traditional means of production that allow creators to
maintain creative control. A supporter of design projects noted the differences in community
behavior between those who participate in crowdfunding and those who use more traditional
fundraising methods:

“In other domains….people could have a tendency to feel competitive with people they are doing
something similar. But, what I think what’s unique about this space [crowdfunding], is people
feel more collaborative. So, I feel more like funding these types of projects as an act of good will,
and say like, hey you guys are doing great stuff...I just wanted to be a part of that uplifting force.”

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Cooperation remains a normative behavior for many online communities [30]. While supporters of
both causes and creators are primarily motivated by philanthropic behavior, they often appreciate a
memento of their giving experience. A supporter who contributed to a project that employed local
women in a Chilean community commented:

“I thought it would be nice to get something that would remind me of the project that my friend
was doing and kind of connect me to the culture and the community that I was supporting.”

Crowdfunding provides an avenue for supporters to be part of a community of like-minded

individuals and express their beliefs through the exchange of resources (primarily financial),
whether it is for the creator or project cause.

4.2 Crowdfunding Demotivators

In addition to describing their motivations for participating in crowdfunding, informants also
indicated several factors that significantly reduce their likelihood to solicit resources and
contribute. For creators, these factors included hesitance to publically solicit funding, concerns
about the time commitment relative to other funding mechanisms, fear of failure, and concerns
about privacy and plagiarism. Supporters were mainly concerned about waiting for and not
receiving rewards, ineffective use of funds, and being overwhelmed with requests for support. We
briefly discuss findings for creators and supporters.

4.2.1 Creators: Unmotivated to Ask for Money

Creators were unmotivated to ask for money from their friends and family because, as one creator
put it, crowdfunding feels like “begging”. A creator of a non-fiction project reported:

“When I get into this whole scheme that the work is also trying to float on money from my
friends...it’s all kind of dirty.”

Potential creators also report feeling guilty about asking for money from friends who make less
money. One supporter explained why he does not want to become a creator:

“It looks kind of weird for me with a full time engineering job to be asking some of my friends for
money who are less financially secure.”

Even though launching a crowdfunding campaign is not only about obtaining funds, creators still
worry that their social standing will be lowered.

4.2.2 Creators: Unmotivated to Spend Time

Creators often spend large amounts of time on their crowdfunding campaigns. Some creators
report that crowdfunding is more time consuming than applying for a funding grant. One creator
who is a PhD student explained:

“Typical science grants, you put a lot of work into them up front. [Crowdfunding], I felt like, was
much more time…Constantly advertising, networking, encouraging people to go on and donate,
and then responding to a lot of the replies that I was getting, it ate up a lot of time. And then after
all that fun was over, you have all these different gifts that you promised people...In some ways,
bang for the buck financially, it was not as lucrative as getting a grant.”

However, the same creator noted that with the right strategies, the time commitment can be
reduced:
Northwestern University, Segal Design Institute, Technical Report No. 2 © Gerber, Hui, & Kuo, 2012
“I think that the time commitment and the personal investment could be minimized strategically.
And it could be an excellent resource for students as far as getting funding.”

Creators report spending between 30 minutes and four hours a day on their live campaign, which
is a highly varying time commitment. Although crowdfunding may be less time consuming than
some traditional funding methods, such as hosting a fundraising event, it may be more time
consuming than others, such as writing a grant. Despite the time commitment of running a
campaign, creators report receiving funds more quickly through crowdfunding platforms than with
a grant funding.

4.2.3 Creators: Unmotivated to Fail

Crowdfunding is a public commitment of a creator’s intention to meet a goal. Whether
participating in an all-or-nothing platform or partial payment platform, creators fear failing to meet
their stated goal. One creator reported:

“I think a lot of the fear comes from the fact that if you don’t meet your goal, you don’t get any
money…The risk is if you publicize to all your friends, all your family, all your colleagues,
everyone will know if you fail.”

In order to avoid public failure, one creator privately sold his car and put the funds towards his
campaign to help him reach his goal. While this case may be extreme, creators report anxiety
about having misestimated the size and commitment of their supporter community. Supporters
suggest that they vicariously feel success and failure if a campaign they supported wins or loses,
respectively, suggesting that the fear of failing to meet a goal is shared among creators and
supporters.

4.2.4 Creators: Unmotivated to Gain Publicity

Crowdfunding also requires creators to share their work with an unspecified crowd. A supporter
who does not want to be a creator reported his desire to keep his work private:

“I don’t feel a strong motivation to get more people to hear my music. It’s fine with me if there’s
just a group of family and friends who know that I do it and appreciate it. I don’t really care about
expanding my fan base.”

As supported in our findings about creator motivations, people who participate in crowdfunding
often have a strong desire to expand awareness of their work. Therefore, people who want to avoid
sharing their work often choose to participate in the crowdfunding community only as a supporter.

Advertising one’s in-progress work to the public also allows other people and companies access to
potential valuable ideas. This has led some of our participants to fear that their ideas will be
“stolen.” One creator took precautions before launching his product design project on a
crowdfunding platform:

“I already have a patent, or an application in. And right now it’s first to patent, not first to invent.
So if we did get a patent, then I can yell at those people [who copied my idea].”

This creator explained how his product design project had failed, and another group of creators
launched an almost identical project a few months later that made its funding goal. Having a
patent allows one creator to pursue legal action against another for possible idea theft. Both

Northwestern University, Segal Design Institute, Technical Report No. 2 © Gerber, Hui, & Kuo, 2012
creators and companies can access potentially valuable ideas that have not been patented by
browsing crowdfunding websites.

4.2.5 Supporters: Unmotivated to Waste Money

Some crowdfunding platforms allow creators to keep what they raise even if they do not reach the
funding goal. Even though this is beneficial for the creator, some supporters worry that their
money will not be used as effectively. One supporter described how she prefers the All-or-Nothing
funding model to others:

“There’s kind of a sense of security knowing that my money, I’ll only be paying if she meets her
goal.”

The All-or-Nothing funding model may be one of the reasons that Kickstarter has enjoyed more
success than other crowdfunding platforms that use the All & More model.

4.2.6 Supporters: Unmotivated to Wait for or Not Receive

Rewards
Because creators on crowdfunding platforms often do not have extensive business experience,
they often underestimate the amount of planning and time it takes to finish a project and deliver on
rewards. One supporter of technology projects noted:

“Part of the process that’s bad about [crowdfunding] is that it’s new people, and they really don’t
have any idea how long a product is going to take. So, they often underestimate the amount of time
it takes to get something out.”

A creator validated this supporter’s complaint when he described how he failed to deliver his
rewards due to time constraints:

“The time spent to do [shipping] was going to be about half the time...So that was like a huge, I
don’t know, wake up call. So, at that point, what we did was we reached out to all our donors and
asked them personally, would you mind if we didn’t send you a prize?”

Since receiving a reward is considered a main motivation for supporters, not receiving the reward
can act as a deterrent for future funding activity.

4.2.7 Supporters: Unmotivated to be Pestered for Support

Sometimes creators make excessive requests for support. Such action causes supporter resistance
to participation. A supporter reported:

“There was a group, and they just kept hounding about giving to their [crowdfunding] campaign.
I was getting bombarded by all these messages, and I just really resented that. And I never gave to
them, even though I probably would have given if they would have just backed off a little.”
Such evidence suggests that there can be a saturation of crowdfunding requests, which will limit
supporter activity.

While many creators and supporters are motivated to participate in crowdfunding, many indicate
factors that unmotivate. For creators, crowdfunding can be both an efficient and inefficient way to
raise solicit resources; it can be a way of raising awareness but at times too much; it can lead to
public success or failure. For supporters, crowdfunding can be a way to support causes and
Northwestern University, Segal Design Institute, Technical Report No. 2 © Gerber, Hui, & Kuo, 2012
creators with limited access to traditional funding mechanisms. The downside is that supporter
must potentially accept delays, ineffective use of funds, and a poor communication strategy.

5. DISCUSSION
Theoretically, we answer a critical question for online community researchers [30]: Why are
people motivated to participate in online communities? We offer an in-depth qualitative
investigation of an emerging community – crowdfunding. We do so across multiple projects and
multiple platforms. By interviewing creators, supporters, and senior crowdfunding platform
executives, we present nuanced qualitative evidence supporting previous exploratory research on
crowdfunding motivations and reveal new findings that fundamentally influence how we think
about participation in crowdfunding.

We validate previous findings [31] [53] that creators are motivated to participate in crowdfunding
to raise funds, expand awareness of work, connect with others, and gain approval. We present
refined explanations for creator motivation, such as the desire for long-term interaction with
supporters and the desire for information and monetary based feedback to build confidence in the
uncertain environment of creative work [16]. In addition, we uncover two more creator
motivations—the desire to maintain control and learn. Our research also validates previous work
on the supporter motivation to expand one’s network, which we classify under the desire to be part
of a community. We also present further supporter motivations, such as the desire to collect
rewards and support causes and people. The efficacy of crowdfunding platforms lies in the active
and engaged participation of both creators and supporters and therefore it is critical to understand
both creator and supporter motivations.

Self-determination theory posits that when motivated by the need to feel competent, connected to
others, and free from constraints people are likely to persist, perform, and act creatively [50] –
activities critical to successful crowdfunding. The rapid rise of particular crowdfunding platforms
such as Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, and RocketHub may be attributed to their ability to satisfy a blend
of people’s motivations for competence, connectedness, and autonomy. As evidenced in Table 2,
the emergent crowdfunding creator and funder motivations can be categorized under these three
drivers.

Autonomy Competence Relatedness

Creator Raise Funds Approval Expand Awareness
Learn Learn Connect
Control
Funder Support Causes Collect Collect
Support Causes
Help Others
Community

Table 2. Categorization of crowdfunding creator and funder motivations according to self-determination theory.

5.1 Autonomy
Our study finds that creators and supporters are motivated to be autonomous. For creators, the
desire to raise funds, learn, and maintain control fall under the motivation to be autonomous
because they give creators the freedom to carry out the project on their own terms. Raising funds
allows creators to procure necessary physical and human resources, while learning allows for the
attainment of mental resources. In addition, studies have shown that environments that foster
autonomy increase the motivation to learn [13]. Furthermore, maintaining control lets creators
determine project direction. For supporters, the desire to support causes is influenced by the
Northwestern University, Segal Design Institute, Technical Report No. 2 © Gerber, Hui, & Kuo, 2012
freedom to choose which causes to give resources. Opportunities for choice and self-direction are
found to enhance intrinsic motivation and greater feelings of autonomy [12]. Like consumers in
the traditional marketplace [25], supporters are motivated by perceptions of control and choice.
Like online peer production [47] [30], participants seek to maximize benefit for the community
members rather than formal institutions.

5.2 Competence
Our study finds that creators and supporters are motivated to achieve competence. For creators, the
desire for approval and to learn are classified under the motivation to achieve competency because
they increase one’s capacity to carry out a task. Creators desire approval because they want
validation in their ability to do their project. In addition, they desire knowledge in order to carry
out their project successfully. For supporters, receiving a reward enhances feelings of competency
because the reward serves as physical validation for the effectiveness of their support. As
evidenced in our data, supporters also give money to receive rewards with which they can interact
and learn more about. Cognitive evaluation theory (CET) states that obtaining feedback and
rewards enhance feelings of competence [50]. Like philanthropists [48] [1] and online peer
production communities [30], supporters are motivated to “give” resources to creators and causes
that align with desire to improve society either through the work they help to realize or the
democratic process by which they create the work. Similar to peer-to-peer lending communities
[33], supporters are motivated to give to those creators who are most likely to be successful.

5.3 Relatedness
Our study finds that creators and supporters also desire relatedness. For creators, this is satisfied
by the desire to expand awareness and connect with others. Expanding awareness allows creators
to share their work with a larger community, while connecting with others allows creators to make
connections that are beneficial professionally and socially. For supporters, the desire for
relatedness is satisfied by the desire to collect, support causes, help others, and be part of a
community. First, people may support causes and collect rewards in order to affiliate themsleves
with a certain group of people. Marketing scholars find that people sometimes spend money
strategically in the service of affiliation [37]. Helping others allows supporters to make stronger
inter-personal connections through altruistic behavior. Furthermore, participating on
crowdfunding platforms further allow supporters to identify with a group of people with similar
interests. In our study, both creators and supporters reported feeling an unspoken tie with other
creators and supporters, which enhanced their desire to connect. Overall, addressing these desires
satisfy the basic psychological need for social contact [46]. Like online peer production
communities [30], creators and supporters seek a trusting community of likeminded others. They
are motivated to learn from each other and receive feedback and expand awareness of their work
in a social setting.

5.4 Motivational Crowdwork

This work contributes to our larger research agenda on motivational crowdwork, which examines
motivations in the context of online crowdsourcing. Such a perspective is critical given the
growing research on online crowd behavior, which will likely change the work flow of creative
and routine work [14]. Online crowds can influence how distributed groups of people can
collaborate to get work done on a scale that exceeds individual capabilities.
Platforms that satisfy motivational needs may ultimately encourage a more diverse group of
people to launch their ideas compared to platforms that do not satisfy these motivational needs.
New models of sorting and prioritizing opportunities for supporters may help to direct individuals

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with particular motivations [40]. We suspect that platforms are already being designed to enhance
motivation which has been found to be malleable and context dependent [50].

6. DESIGN PRINCIPLES FOR CROWDFUNDING

Practically, our investigation offers insight in to how to effectively recruit and retain creators and
supporters in crowdfunding activity. Based on research and related literature, we offer
preliminary design principles for motivation. These five design principles are specifically
intended to motivate potential creators and supporters to individually begin and sustain their
involvement in the context of crowdfunding. While specifically tailored for crowdfunding, we
suspect the principles can be applied to crowdwork. Table 3 summarizes the design principles.

Design Principle Motivation Example

1 Support resource exchange To Raise Funds (Creators) Safe, easy payments online
To Support Causes (Supporters)
To Help others (Supporters)
2 Support community To Connect with Others Online supporter/creator
(Creators/Supporters) chat rooms
3 Provide opportunities to To Expand Awareness of Work Project updates through
expand awareness of work (Creators) social media

4 Facilitate search To Learn (Creators) Browse by cause or creator

To Support Causes (Supporters)
5 Provide autonomy and To Maintain Control (Creators) Present risks in an easy to
transparency understand format

Table 3. Design principles for motivating participation in crowdfunding.

For each principle, we briefly present the underlying motivational mechanism and ground these
theoretical concepts in real-world examples from existing crowdfunding platforms. It is important
to note that though the examples are intended to clarify some of the ideas that are discussed, they
are not intended to be perfect models of the principle. Within the same platform, we often
observed simultaneous supports for motivation and crowdfunding use and lack thereof. These
examples are intended to both describe what we found and question what we did not—a call to
human computer interaction designers to rethink these existing approaches to crowdfunding
platforms with an eye toward motivating participation.

6.1 Support resource exchange

Creators, supporters, and platforms should be able to exchange human, information, and financial
resources before, during, and after the crowdfunding campaign. Currently, much of these
exchanges are informal. While the platform is built around the safe and easy exchange of financial
resources between creators and supporters, the exchange of human and information resources
could potentially enhance a project’s success. Further, resources should be available at any time
throughout the crowdfunding process—not just during a live campaign.

The human resources should be available to fulfill tasks associated with creative production, such
as creation, manufacturing, implementation, marketing, planning, and fulfilling. Information
resources should be available to transfer knowledge and advance explanations. Access to
informational and human resources has been found to have a direct positive impact on persistence
in ambiguous tasks [11][57]. A person’s perception of adequate resources may affect their belief
about the intrinsic value of the projects they have undertaken [4]. Similarly, researchers of
Northwestern University, Segal Design Institute, Technical Report No. 2 © Gerber, Hui, & Kuo, 2012
creativity support tools advocate for including multiple avenues for gathering new resources [51].

Example: Live online support

6.2 Provide opportunities to expand awareness of work

Creators should have multiple opportunities to share their work prior to, during, and after the
crowdfunding campaign. Prior to the campaign, there should be opportunities to communicate
with future supporters to increase awareness of the upcoming project. Throughout the project,
there should be multiple opportunities to raise awareness through different channels. Following
the campaign, additional resources are often needed necessitating the need to keep supporters up
to date on subsequent progress.

People are more likely to persist in a difficult task when they share small wins with their others
[60]. Through the sharing process, they receive positive validation and are more likely to believe
they can accomplish a task, are willing to take on more challenging work, have greater intrinsic
motivation to complete a task, persist in the face of challenges, and expend more effort in the task
[5][12][52].

Example: Project updates through social media

6.3 Support community

Creators and supporters should be able to view themselves as working together to realize a
creative project. The platform encourages creators to persuade supporters of the value of their
work and in return supporters provide financial resources and encouragement for project
completion.

Membership in online “cultures of participation” encourage new members to observe and learn,
and experts to share and grow, allowing everyone to contribute when and how they feel most
comfortable [26]. Peer production communities encourage recruiting and clustering similar others
to increase identity based commitment over time and coordinating contributions to maximize
benefits for the community [47]. In a creative community, people perform creatively when
supported by a community of individuals who can provide inspiration for ideas, encouragement,
constructive feedback, and shared commitment to a goal [4][44].

Example: Online creator/supporter chat rooms

6.4 Facilitate search

Creators and supporters should be able to navigate platforms through search, looking for creators
and causes that they find most relevant to their interests. Through this process, creators make
decisions about how to pitch their own project and funders decide which projects to support. For
novice creators, using search to understand their own project scope is a recommended learning
process. For novice supporters, search allows them to support projects that they find most
compelling.

Creators prefer tools that allow them to identify common properties between each resource rather
than having the tool accomplish the task for them [40]. Similarly, researchers in psychology [41]
and HCI [51] suggest providing vast opportunities for navigation to support the varied and
unpredictable paths and styles of the individual. Supporters seek to support initiatives that
strengthen identity [1] and social status [6][19]. Search enhances opportunity for information
gathering.
Northwestern University, Segal Design Institute, Technical Report No. 2 © Gerber, Hui, & Kuo, 2012
Example: Browse by cause and creator

6.5 Provide autonomy and transparency

The web supports new behaviors. We must be concerned with how creators and supporters
understand the implications of their new behaviors. Copyright, or permission granted to the creator
of an original work, is a particular area for concern. Creators upload unique content when pitching
their work. They may not read the fine print agreements prior to using these services or consider
the consequences. We suggest presenting the legalities in a way that is enjoyable and non-
threatening for the creator. Further, platforms may collect detailed data on supporters’ personal
preferences and funding amounts. Like the copyright issue, this issue is not always apparent to the
supporter, and education to supporters about this process is needed. We suspect expectations for
transparency will increase as crowdfunding continues to gain popularity. Companies may change
policy due to creator and supporter demand.

This principle stems from the research in psychology and HCI which suggests that transparency
creates trust, and trust creates future participation [17]. If the company is clear about contributions
from the creators and supporters and how these contributions could inspire other people and
companies, this could feedback back not the creator and supporters confidence and awareness of
the platform.
Julie Hui 5/27/12 11:38 AM
Example: Present risks to participation in an easy-to-understand, nonthreatening format. Comment: ?

7. LIMITATONS
In this study, we chose to focus on creators and supporters and use a snowballing technique to
gather participants. As successful creators are more willing to refer other successful creators, we
found it difficult to identify people who created projects that were not successfully funded. We are
currently working on recruiting a new set of participants with a focus on unsuccessful interactions
with crowdfunding. Additionally, we acknowledge that motivations for participation could be
influenced by immediate crowdfunding concerns rather than a creator’s longitudinal perspective.
For instance, people who have funded a project and received their reward may report different
motivations than people who have funded a project but not yet received their reward.

Our informants are restricted to participating in one of three crowdfunding platforms. We chose
these platforms because they are the three most popular platforms for “creative work”. However,
there are additional crowdfunding platforms. It is possible that participants on other platforms are
motivated to participate for different reasons. Further, we collected data in one point and time and
suspect that motivations for participation may vary slightly as platforms are redesigned and
expectations for participation are altered.

8. FUTURE RESEARCH
Our initial findings suggest a number of areas for future research. First, we plan to examine factors
that may influence motivations, such as domains and professional expertise. An accomplished
musician, for example, who has experience producing albums funded by his fans may have
different motivations than a novice product designer, whose idea was rejected by venture capitalist
funding. The size of the creator’s social network, his online presence, and funding level may
influence motivation to participate. For example, a creator who requests $5,000 from his small
social network may have different motivations than a creator who requests $100,000 and tweets
regularly with her large social network. Additionally, future work will examine how expertise of

Northwestern University, Segal Design Institute, Technical Report No. 2 © Gerber, Hui, & Kuo, 2012
the creator, project type, crowdfunding experience, management skills, social network, and online
presence influence motivations.

Second, we plan to investigate how the same individual can participate in three distinct roles
including observer, supporter, and creator. While individuals initiate participation in crowdfunding
in one role, early evidence suggests that they transition between roles. For example, an individual
may start as an observer, checking on a crowdfunding website regularly to learn about new
projects and gain inspiration. After weeks of observing, she may decide to launch her project.
After a successful launch, she may see a project launched by a person who funded her and may
choose to reciprocate support. We see initial evidence supporting this hypothesis. For example,
one creator reported:

“There’s a kind of etiquette in [my film program]. If someone funded me, then I’m supposed to
fund them back. Otherwise, it would be a little awkward.”

Future work will show how individuals engage in different roles and how the extent of
participation in each role informs future choices.

Third, we will consider the individual strategies people use to engage in crowdfunding and
subsequent entrepreneurial behavior. Initial evidence suggests that creators and supporters
extensively rely on social media to spread awareness of activity and promote engagement. As one
creator noted:

“I’ve been communicating with people through Twitter, I’ve gained a bunch of new Twitter
followers, a bunch of new G+ followers…I put up a website with a blog, and people can comment
on the blog…I wanted to engage the public in a little more of a dialogue.”

While creators primarily want to engage with the crowd, one informant described designing his
page on Kickstarter to minimize the number of comments when he failed to meet his deadline and
felt overwhelmed by the responsibility. He described his work as “hacking” the interface so that
only a few comments could appear at a time. With fewer comments, he felt there would be less
emotional contagion and ultimate dissatisfaction with his work. Creators also describe strategies
for fulfilling orders on time such as hiring people to work for little to no money as one creator did
who hired teenagers to wrap and send packages of his books to supporters because he had
underestimated the time it would take to fulfill the orders. This future work will examine how
individuals choose strategies based on the most pressing needs.

9. CONCLUSIONS
Crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter, RocketHub, and IndieGoGo, are promising
platforms for realizing creative work. The crowd contributes millions of dollars each month to
entrepreneurial creators throughout the world. Continued participation may have a significant
effect on the economy by encouraging a more diverse set of people to start small entrepreneurial
ventures, influencing the type of ideas that are introduced into the world, and promoting the use of
disposable income to support these ventures [32][42]. However, human computer interaction
designers must take special care to design the interactions between the participants and the
technology, to insure alignment of motivation.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are grateful to Lauren Tindal and Megan Scherich for their contributions to data collection and to Matt
Easterday, Bruce Ankenman, Rob Morris, and Brent Hecht and the workshop participants at the 2012
Computer Supporter Cooperative Work Workshop in Seattle, WA for their thoughtful responses. The
authors are grateful to the informants who participated in the research.
Northwestern University, Segal Design Institute, Technical Report No. 2 © Gerber, Hui, & Kuo, 2012
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The following research builds on initial work presented at a poster session at

ACM 2011’s Creativity and Cognition conference in Atlanta, Georgia by Hannah
Chung and Elizabeth Gerber and a workshop paper by Elizabeth Gerber, Julie
Hui, and Pei-Yi Kuo at CSCW 2012 in Seattle. This prior work represents
exploratory work and initial findings based on preliminary interviews (with less
than 15 creators and supporters). The following paper involves 39 interviews
with creators and funders representing all project domains across platforms. We
have thoroughly coded the data and present rigorous evidence for each theme.
Additionally, we present motivations for not participating in crowdfunding.

Northwestern University, Segal Design Institute, Technical Report No. 2 © Gerber, Hui, & Kuo, 2012