No abstract

Crowdfunding is a method of raising funds for projects, creative pursuits, peer-topeer lending, and charitable causes. The idea of crowdfunding stems from the more encompassing concept of crowdsourcing, which refers not only to the gathering of funds, but to group participation in the convergence of ideas and content creation. Thus, crowdfunding can be considered to be one type of crowdsourcing. The following study examines the crowdfunding behavior of a sample of business professionals located in the service sector of metropolitan Pittsburgh, PA. In general, the empirical findings suggested that smaller goals tend to have better success ratios, while getting the targets achieved tends to attract more donors, especially when a goal is nearly met. Contrary to findings in some previous literature, there appears to be a weak link between respondents' social networking use and familiarity with crowdfunding. Furthermore, respondents' charitable giving habits did not closely link with crowdfunding solicitation behavior. Finally, there was a weak connection between crowdfunding behavior and income, but age did reveal a significant connection.