How to Use Crowdfunding in Extension: A Relationship Education Example

Crowdfunding is a resource that allows individuals or groups to raise funds while simultaneously engaging relevant communities and, thus, is an important tool for Extension specialists. We provide recommended steps for successful crowdfunding, including tips for identifying a website, developing or refining a proposal, and crafting a marketing and campaign strategy. We use the successful crowdfunding of a relationship education program as an example

Guerilla Marketing Using Social Media as a Success Strategy in Crowdfunding Campaigns: Towards a Research Model

Crowdfunding enables project initiators to obtain money from unknown supporters worldwide to finance their business ideas. To receive funding, an adequate and effective communication between project initiators and supporters is very important. However, traditional marketing activities’ high costs are often unaffordable. Therefore, guerrilla marketing represents an unconventional and inexpensive way to gain reach and popularity, especially if done via social media. Research has largely neglected the ways different marketing activities and social media influence crowdfunding success. The contribution of our work-in-progress is that we provide a theoretical and integrative understanding of how guerrilla marketing has an influence on crowdfunding success via social media. We derive a preliminary model on crowdfunding success from literature and test it against seven cases of crowdfunding campaigns which employed guerrilla marketing in their social media campaigns. Subsequently, using inductive case analysis, we extend the current understanding of crowdfunding success to an initial research model

Seeking Rights, Not Rent: How Litigation Finance Can Help Break Music Copyright\u27s Precedent Gridlock

Since its inception, litigation finance has steadily grown in prevalence and popularity in the United States. While many scholars have examined its merits, few have considered litigation finance specifically in the context of copyright law. This is most unfortunate, for there, a vicious cycle has taken hold: high litigation costs discourage many market participants from taking cases to trial or summary judgment in order to vindicate their legal rights, even when they have strong cases. Thus, parties settle almost every case, which in turn prevents resolution of longstanding precedential questions in critical areas of copyright law. The legal uncertainty resulting from this precedential gridlock generates higher avoidance costs and poses more financial risks for market participants, particularly less-heeled or less-established parties. This Note proposes one way in which litigation finance could help break that cycle. Specifically, rights holders and defendants alike can use litigation finance to fund strategic-litigation campaigns to pressure the development of precedent. To illustrate how this might work, this Note examines litigation finance in the narrow context of music copyright, an area that perfectly illustrates the problems besetting copyright law writ large. In doing so, this Note flips a popular criticism of litigation finance on its head: while some scholars argue that litigation finance can distort litigation strategy by encouraging litigants to reject mutually beneficial settlements, it is normatively desirable to do so given the unsettled state of music copyright law

Understanding the Dynamic Interplay of Social Buzz and Contribution Behavior within and between Online Platforms – Evidence from Crowdfunding

Motivated by the growing interconnection between online platforms, we examine the dynamic interplay between social buzz and contribution behavior in the crowdfunding context. Since the utility of crowdfunding projects is usually difficult to ascertain, prospective backers draw on quality signals, such as social buzz and prior-contribution behavior, to make their funding decisions. We employ the panel vector autoregression (PVAR) methodology to investigate both intra- and cross-platform effects based on data collected from three platforms: Indiegogo, one of the largest crowdfunding platforms on the web, Twitter and Facebook. Our results show a positive influence of social buzz on project backing, but a negative relationship in the reverse direction. Furthermore, we observe strong positive feedback cycles within each platform. Our results are supplemented by split-sample analyses for project orientation (Social, Cause and Entrepreneurial) and project success (Winners vs. Losers), in which Facebook shares were identified as a critical success factor

Start-ups, entrepreneurial networks and equity crowdfunding : a processual perspective

This paper outlines findings from a large-scale interview based study of start-ups who obtained equity crowdfunding in the UK. It takes a novel integrative approach towards the analysis of entrepreneurial networks by examining both personal and business networks involved in the equity crowdfunding process. Adopting a processual perspective, the empirical findings show that networks and social capital play a critical role in the crowdfunding process. Start-ups leverage, build and draw upon a complex array of network actors and 'ties' as they move through the different stages of their crowdfunding journey. The paper shows that this form of funding confers important relational benefits to recipients which amount to 'more than money'. It concludes that equity crowdfunding is a highly 'relational' form of entrepreneurial finance, requiring holistic forms of empirical investigation. Implications for theoretical development, managerial practice and further research are outlined.PostprintPeer reviewe

Crowdfunding as Donations to Entrepreneurial Firms

Abstract The bulk of today's ("preorder-," "reward-," "gift-," and "donation-based") crowdfunding raises funds for small, private entrepreneurial ventures without granting funders private claims to the projects' income or the ability to guarantee the realization and delivery of project outcomes. We theorize and show empirically – via a mixed-method approach applied to a representative and remarkably informative case – that the payoff structure for crowdfunders, akin to a public good contribution problem, leads to the tangible value of main project outputs exerting little influence on contributions to crowdfunding. This then raises the question of which funder motivations fund seekers may have to address to crowdfund their projects. We demonstrate the especially large role of non-pecuniary motivations and pinpoint three particular motivations that profit-seeking entrepreneurs may stimulate to be financed through crowdfunding. The findings hold important implications for entrepreneurs' crowdfunding strategies, platform design, and our understanding of how this funding institution works in general. The study also adds to emerging research on the implications of the public good nature of crowdfunding

Crowdfunding as Donations to Entrepreneurial Firms

The bulk of today's (“preorder-,” “reward-,” “gift-,” and “donation-based”) crowdfunding raises funds for small, private entrepreneurial ventures without granting funders private claims to the projects’ income or the ability to guarantee the realization and delivery of project outcomes. We theorize and show empirically – via a mixed-method approach applied to a representative and remarkably informative case – that the payoff structure for crowdfunders, akin to a public good contribution problem, leads to the tangible value of main project outputs exerting little influence on contributions to crowdfunding. This then raises the question of which funder motivations fund seekers may have to address to crowdfund their projects. We demonstrate the especially large role of non-pecuniary motivations and pinpoint three particular motivations that profit-seeking entrepreneurs may stimulate to be financed through crowdfunding. The findings hold important implications for entrepreneurs’ crowdfunding strategies, platform design, and our understanding of how this funding institution works in general. The study also adds to emerging research on the implications of the public good nature of crowdfunding