https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7776-643X
Correction
23 Oct 2025: Sirisawat S, Chatjuthamard P, Kiattisin S, Treepongkaruna S (2025) Correction: The future of digital donation crowdfunding. PLOS ONE 20(10): pone.0335353.exml. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0335353 View correction
Figures
Abstract
Amidst the Coronavirus crisis, many fundraising projects have emerged to relieve financial burdens resulting from social distancing policies. Crowdfunding is a way to raise money to fund a business, project or charity, through either social media or other online platforms to reach hundreds of potential sponsors. We developed guidelines for effective donation-based crowdfunding through online platforms. Using Futures Research (FR) technique, we conducted our analyses in 3 phases. In Phase 1, we reviewed relevant literature and conducted in-depth interviews of related parties. In Phase 2, we interviewed experts using Ethnographic Futures Research (EFR) technique. In Phase 3, we visualized the future using the principles of Futures Wheel, Cross-impact Matrix and Scenarios. Based on our findings, effective donation-based crowdfunding platforms should adopt Blockchain technology for transparency and accountability, and incentivize donations to keep backers loyal. Founders should be required to obtain fundraising licenses from relevant regulators. Finally, laws and regulations that protect platform users should be standardized internationally. Our proposed guidelines hope to improve the quality and transparency of future fundraising activities.
Citation: Sirisawat S, Chatjuthamard P, Kiattisin S, Treepongkaruna S (2022) The future of digital donation crowdfunding. PLoS ONE 17(11): e0275898. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0275898
Editor: Barbara Guidi, University of Pisa, ITALY
Received: November 11, 2021; Accepted: September 26, 2022; Published: November 11, 2022
Copyright: © 2022 Sirisawat et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability: Data are owned by Mahidol University and are available upon request. Interested researchers may submit a request to Ms. Luksamee Choojai, the Secretary of the IT Management Department, Faculty of Engineering at the email address: "egitm@mahidol.ac.th."
Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Introduction
The current pandemic resulted from the spread of a strain of Coronavirus, officially known as Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19), that began in China and has spread around the world. Since the year 2000, we have seen the emergence of a novel disease that has resulted in large-scale contagion at least once every decade, namely the SARS epidemic in 2002–2003, the swine flu pandemic in 2009–2010, the Ebola epidemic in 2014–2016, and the MERS epidemic from 2015 –present reported by Nicholas [1]. Since 2019 COVID-19 has created mass global panic and led to unprecedented public concern over cash spending [2]. Research has shown that infection can be transmitted through contact with banknotes and coins [3,4] as well as credit cards, debit cards and cell phones [2,5]. Experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) advise people to wash their hands after touching cash or other objects to help reduce their risk of contracting the virus [6]. People’s behavior towards spending money has changed and has increasingly turned to spending via digital channels [5].
Despite the virulence of each plague, one thing that represents the psychological beauty of humanity is that people raise money to help others who have been affected by the incident, with donations being raised through online social platforms such as JustGiving, GoFundMe and Taejai. Most donations are made via e-payment channels according to the Global NGO technology report (NGOs) in 2019, which found that 64% of NGOs worldwide accept online donations on their website through payment methods such as credit cards, direct debit, PayPal, digital wallet and bitcoin [7]. However, fundraising through online crowdfunding platforms are subject to many requirements and restrictions. Founders must propose their project to the platform’s board, which may take 3–7 days to approve. Upon approval, most platforms charge a backers’ fees totaling 3–12% of donations received by the platform. The founders’ geographical location may also impact the currency in which their fundraising can take place, and international money transfer fees. For further information, donors can find out about fundraising programs through the platform and make donations via channels such as credit, debit, PayPal from website information [8–11]. The 2019 Global NGO technology report suggests that 90% of sample use social media to engage their supporters and donors, with the most popular social media platforms being Facebook, Twitter, Linkedln, WhatsApp, and YouTube, respectively [7]. Even during the COVID-19 crisis, Facebook created a tool to raise donations in some countries without fees[12] Fundraising through social channels can be done quickly because it does not have to be approved by the platform’s board. However, by transferring money directly via social media, donors are subject to risk of misrepresentation due to lack of information about fundraisers [13]. This leads us to explore stakeholder characteristics required to make a successful donation-based crowdfunding platform using the principles of Futures Wheel.
Thus, this research studies the potential direction for the development and improvement of donation crowdfunding platforms that will meet needs of stakeholders now and in the future. We identify key success factors, which can act as practical guidelines for each stakeholder group.
Review of related literature
Futures research
According to Jerome [14] & Roy [15], Futures Research (FR) is a systematic approach to find answers to future choices by considering the reasonable possibilities that are the outcome of recent decisions and policies. Futures research is long-term planning consisting of three activities: planning, forecasting, and decision-making. The aim of futures research is to negate the preconceived notion that the future is a fantasy, but rather that it is predictable and possible. The heart of futures research is to expand thinking from simple predictions, to exploring, conceptualizing, and testing desirable future outcomes. This vision of the future will help shaping long-term policies, tactics, and planning that leads to achieving what we need in the future. It uses a group of relevant experts as the stakeholders while determining the future factor composition guidelines.
Donation-based crowdfunding & crowdfunding ecosystems
There exists four key types of crowdfunding: 1) donation-based crowdfunding, 2) reward-based crowdfunding, 3) lending-based crowdfunding, and 4) equity-based crowdfunding [16,17]. This paper focuses only on donation-based crowdfunding. We define a donation-based crowdfunding platform as a technological intermediary used by fundraisers to match donations with donors’ objectives, which are not monetary, but psychological ones. Following Beaulieu et al. [17], we identify stakeholders in crowdfunding ecosystems as those shown in Table 1. We summarize existing literature on specific success factors and components of donation-based crowdfunding in Table 2. Overall, stakeholders of donation-based crowdfunding are not those in the traditional capital markets involved in other types of crowdfunding such as reward-based crowdfunding, lending-based crowdfunding, and equity-based crowdfunding.
Methods
Futures research
To study the future of crowdfunding donations, we use Futures Research techniques which can be divided into normative and exploratory forecasting [14]. This allows us to develop a donation-based crowdfunding platform by letting stakeholders determine the direction, composition, and success factors of the platform. Fig 1 depicts 3 phases of our analysis as follows.
Phase 1: We collected fundamental data by reviewing existing literature. We then interviewed relevant stakeholders using in-depth interview techniques to obtain characteristics and components of donation-based crowdfunding in addition to those obtained through literature review.
Phase 2: We interviewed experts and qualified persons selected using Ethnographic Futures Research techniques aimed at classification, narrative, analysis, interpretation and image diagnosis. Experts and other interviewees were checked to ensure they possess required qualifications to be in our study prior to the interview appointment. Interviewees were allowed to change the interview structure by adding or excluding certain topics as they saw fit during the interview. The interviewer thoroughly listened to the content and took notes for further analysis [14,15]. The interviewees were offered three possible future scenarios: 1) optimistic-realistic scenario, 2) pessimistic-realistic scenario, and 3) the most-probable scenario. Based on interviewee’s choice, we obtained the attributes and elements of successful donation-based crowdfunding.
Phase 3: The Futures Wheel, a participatory ‘‘smart group” method, utilizes structured brainstorming process to reveal multiple levels of consequences arising from changes. After interviewing experts, we drafted the possible futures of donation-based crowdfunding by creating a futures wheel, analyzing cross-impact matrix sourced from experts in phase 2, and describing envisioned future donation crowdfunding scenarios resulting from research.
Subject selection and allocation
To select and allocate subject, we used purposive sampling method as follows.
Group 1 We conducted in-depth interviews with 21 stakeholders to understand the current fundraising system as shown in Table 3.
Group 2 We interviewed 20 experts with knowledge and experience in fundraising for donation-based crowdfunding as shown in Table 4.
Applying Macmillan [36], we select number of experts within the range of 17–21 with a 0.5 margin of error.
Data collection process
As our study is human subject research, we sought required approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) to conduct this research. After receiving this approval, we began collecting data through interviews with stakeholders and experts, taking notes and voice recordings. Interview lengths range from 45 to 60 minutes. We then utilised data collected to create a Futures Wheel and conducted a cross matrix scenario analysis.
Results
Sketching the future of donation-based crowdfunding
Using the principles of the Futures Wheel, we asked a group of experts to evaluate consequences for each scenario in the cross-impact matrix to determine the relationships and interdependencies among compositions and factors of donation-based crowdfunding shown in Figs 2–4.
We rate the significance of each relationship using a three-level scale, where +1 is highly relevant, 1 is somewhat relevant, and 0 is not relevant. These scores are generated from the assessment of 20 experts involved in our research. Factors that are deemed by more than 70% of experts as relevant are given a score of +1 and included in Tables 5–8 below.
Findings related to the composition and factors of stakeholders on the future of donation-based crowdfunding and scenario
Based on the analysis of the composition and factors of stakeholders, successful donation-based crowdfunding of the future should comprise of the following groups of stakeholders. Each group of stakeholders has its own scenario.
Website providers
Scenario “Website providers should develop a platform that supports global donations, incorporates technology such as Blockchain, and considers UX/UI to ensure it is secure, easy to use and satisfying for the next generation of users.”
Website providers should develop a donation-based crowdfunding platform by taking into account 3 main factors: 1) System Development 2) Technology 3) Social Partner. Details are shown in Table 9.
Founders
Scenario “Founders in the future will be required to have a legal fundraising license, skills and experience in fundraising, good attributes, and offer creative projects that meet societal needs.”
Good founders in the future is defined by three main factors: 1) Founder experience 2) Founder characteristics, and 3) Project/Campaign. Details of each factor including sub-components are shown in Table 10.
An attribute with less than 70% relevance score is Market Share under the Project/Campaign category, which considers the uniqueness of a project’s objectives compared to others. If a project seems similar to existing projects, founders should try to identify ways to differentiate it in order to increase social value and fundraising success.
Backers
Scenario “Backers in the future should be loyal to the platform and happy with projects they have supported. The platform should be transparent in its fundraising activities, such that donors can evaluate and track the projects’ performance over time.”
To succeed in fundraising, website providers and founders must consider the following three main factors related to backers: motivation, satisfaction and follow-up as shown in Table 11.
An attribute with less than 70% relevance score is Economic Condition under the Motivation category, which could impact backers’ income and ability to donate to various causes.
Legal
Scenario "In the future, there must be international laws and regulations preventing exploitative and illegal activity on donation-based crowdfunding platforms. Furthermore, there should be an increased emphasis on building an understanding of the ethical and religious contexts of each country through online media.”
The legal aspect can be divided into 2 factors: laws and regulations, with detailed explanation shown in Table 12.
Discussion
Assuming pandemics are likely to recur in the future, we explored components and factors that will result in successful donation-based crowdfunding activities. We collected information from existing literature and in-depth interviews with experts based on the EFR technique and principles of the Futures Wheel. This led us to propose guidelines for a successful and sustainable donation-based crowdfunding model that can withstand future pandemics based on stakeholder groups as follows.
The website providers group
System development.
To improve the transparency and trustworthiness of donation-based crowdfunding platforms, we find that Blockchain technology should be employed as it can enhance security and reliability for monetary transactions without need for intermediaries [31,37]. Blockchain is a transparent and traceable technology that increases the credibility of the system’s development and provides security, as it will allow donors to track fundraisers’ management of resources, including procurement activities. Further, Blockchain technology has no border limit. Donors can donate through Blockchain without having to convert their local currency to any other currency. Blockchain also allows two unrelated parties to safely exchange and share information. This technology is therefore suitable for online transactions, especially in finance where transactions can be made conveniently, quickly, securely, and most importantly, economically through reduced costs. The idea of transactions without borders is associated with research conducted by Weking, et al. [38] & Chen and Bellavitis [39], which proposed a virtual fundraising model using Blockchain technology such that donors can donate in digital currency. Furthermore, applying Blockchain-based business models in platform and strategy development is consistent with Tonnissen, et al. [40], which suggest that the utilization of Blockchain technology in business can bring about a stakeholder ecosystem that creates value for all users and enable business partners to create their own revenue, simplifying transactions and providing credibility in doing business [38,39]. This can impact business security, increase decentralization of financial businesses and remove restrictions caused by borders, essentially acting as a new landscape for innovation, showcasing the benefits of a transparent and decentralized business model.
A potential drawback of using Blockchain is that transactions are irreversible due to the immutable nature of Blockchain records. This means incidents of sending incorrect amounts of funds or sending funds to incorrect recipients can not be canceled. However, refunds may be possible if the recipient is a known and trusted party. Website providers should carefully consider which Blockchain structure is most suitable for their objectives. The three common structures are private, consortium and public [41]. This research considers two scenarios for canceling Blockchain transactions in a donation crowdfunding setting as follows: 1) Backers wish to reverse donations made, and 2) Founders wish to terminate their projects.
It is uncommon that backers would wish to reverse contributions already made, as these payments are charitable rather than commercial. None of the current platforms provide refunds at present. However, website providers may still consider utilizing a smart contract to set conditions for refunds, such as a 7-day grace period for refund requests. Alternatively, in the case where founders wish to terminate their projects due to their inability to proceed for any reason, they will be able to choose to reallocate funds raised to a different project within the same platform.
Despite challenges surrounding the use of Blockchain, we believe this technology will be beneficial to future donation crowdfunding activities due to its safety, transparency, and accountability. If donations can also be made through digital or cryptocurrencies, perhaps through the utilization of Blockchain bridges [41], donation crowdfunding will become more convenient, instantaneous, and borderless.
An appealing platform should embody the principles of platform business models in analyzing the platform’s people and processes to ensure user-friendliness and attractiveness, which coincides with the research of Joseph, et al. [42], Fehrer, et al. [43], Lee & Kim [44], Shrutika & A. [45], Zhao, et al. [46] Website providers’ should understand the ecosystem of producers and users, identify and analyze interdependent business processes, and specific characteristics of the platform. Navigation should begin on the platform homepage and extend to pages within the scope specified by the platform in order to create a stimulating and positive user experience. This will lead to user loyalty, which will enhance the reputation of the platform. The principles of UX/UI design may be applied to design the end-to-end workflow by giving importance to user experience into the design process. All functions of the platform should be in accordance with Gruen, et al. [47] & Joo [48]. If designers and developers have an understanding of ethnography and apply their technical know-how to design a system that meets the needs of businesses and users, it will result in user satisfaction and, most importantly, a sustainable system.
The website providers’ should provide user guides for new users through a variety of media, including Game-Based Learning techniques in accordance with research by Partovi & Rezavi. [49] which attested that Game-Based Learning is effective in educating, entertaining, and engaging new users with the platform and its fundraising programs. Artificial intelligence (AI) should be employed in developing models for matching projects with likely donors based on their behavior, social activities and interests to increase donations received by the platform, in line with research by Sasaki [22] & Capatina, et al. [50]. Whilst the future use of AI holds potential to influence users’ behavior on a large scale, an immense volume of behavioral and social data, and hence information strategies are required to achieve this.
Finally, the website providers’ should provide founders’ background information and regularly update results of ongoing operations to donors, based on the research by Beaulieu, et al. [17] & Liang, et al. [51]. Reporting can take place through the platform’s blog or other communication channels, as frequent updates to project information are the best way to communicate with donors, maintain transparency, and build trust in the project and platform.
Technology.
The website providers’ should anticipate integration with new technology arising in the 6G era. Website Providers should prepare to develop new services through social media, mobile applications, and Blockchain technology, based on the research of Liang, et al. [52] & Zhang, et al. [53]. Along with the rise of 6G mobile networks, applications are expected to emerge that are intelligent and highly dynamic. Networks are expected to become ultra-dense and heterogeneous, interconnecting all things with extremely low-latency and high-speed data transmission. AI will enhance the efficiency of intelligent network automation and connect IoT devices with Blockchain technology resulting in security, and most importantly reduce computational costs.
The founders group
According to research, for future fundraising activities it is very important for founders to have good attributes to provide credibility for their project. Notably, they must have a fundraising license issued by a relevant regulatory body (Donation fundraising license) to reduce the problem of fundraising fraud. Using Blockchain technology in the platform system can alleviate this problem as it can help verify the identity of the parties to transactions, which is in line with the research done by Ramesh, et al. [52]. The Proof-of-Work protocol will be employed as a tool to monitor and record transactions in the network, with smart contract systems implemented to monitor and verify network participants. As fundraising becomes increasingly borderless, founders must be familiar with use of and changes in technology in order to achieve their objectives. Most importantly, Founders must be able to propose their project objectives and information clearly and comprehensively, and engage with donors through impressive promotional efforts to address potential future epidemics or disasters, as stated in the research by Hsieh, et al. [31] & Liang, et al. [51]. Detailed project information will promote a positive attitude towards the project and increase the chances of fundraising success.
The backers group
The fundraising platform should be continuously improved and updated with attractive projects to encourage donations. The platform should seek to build loyalty to it and its founders by introducing membership tiers. An upgrade from freemium to premium tier should come with privileges determined in line with the research by Gamble, et al. [54]. Consumer satisfaction will also have an impact on willingness to pay, which could be an advanced payment plan (from freemium to premium). Additionally, founders must learn about the culture, beliefs, and religions of each region in which they plan to raise funds, so that they can understand the context of each region’s fundraising project and promote borderless fundraising, which is consistent with the research of Di Pietro and Masciarelli [55]. As future fundraising will become increasingly borderless, founders’ understanding of varying attitudes, beliefs, and religious contexts of each region will have significant influence on garnering project support from backers in different locations. Individuals are more likely to share resources and foster relationships with people living in regions with the same main religion. Furthermore, the founder’s performance should be evaluated and rewarded using a point system, with this information provided to potential backers to help with fundraising decision making. Project performance should be reported to donors across multiple communication channels to promote platform transparency and screen founders for future projects.
The legal group
Blockchain has the potential to enable cross-regional donation crowdfunding in the near future, but it is not without its challenges. Laws and regulations governing these activities should be amended to facilitate movement of funds, while preserving the intent for donation crowdfunding by preventing exploitation. There may be meetings and seminars to find mutual agreements to create requirements and standards for mutual cooperation between nations. Results of research shows that it is important for each stakeholder to take into account ethical considerations in the future era of fundraising. This is therefore absent from the legal group, which may contradict the initial conceptual framework that the researcher studied in the study done by Beaulieu, et al. [17], where legal and ethical factors were grouped under the same topic.
The implication of factors on current donation crowdfunding platform
We have summarised desirable platform attributes from the discussion above and identified whether they are present in popular crowdfunding platforms: JustGiving, GoFundMe, and Taejai. We focus on attributes that affect end-users. Show in Table 13.
Our analysis finds that current platform designs are simple and convenient. Founders may start fundraising by merely creating a project on the platform, stipulating the target amount, describing their goals through a written description and multimedia, and obtaining approval from the platform. Subsequent to approval, Founders can easily manage their projects through the platform dashboard. Each platform has its own conditions and limitations, most notably in terms of geography, currency, and applicable laws and regulations. Therefore, these platforms still have room to grow in the future.
We believe that the introduction of Blockchain technology can create a more decentralised information management system and facilitate borderless operations through the utilization of digital currency. This in turn has the potential to increase transparency, safety and convenience, and reduce transaction costs compared to existing payment methods. Currently, most payment fees are determined by the individual platform. AI can be integrated into the platform’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to learn the behaviors of individual backers and provide personalised campaign recommendations. The platform needs to be compatible with popular technology in order to maximise access to users. Cooperation with social media and e-commerce platforms can allow access to audiences and tools such as fundraising through a Live video, with donations being shown on screen real time. Consequently, we believe that platforms should use Game-Based Learning to attract and retain users to the platform. At present, most platforms have not focused on platform appearance and format. Using Game-Based Learning can be an engaging way to build loyalty and differentiate one platform from another. Finally, the current web portal are undergoing ongoing enhancements, as the numerous platforms are still siloed and there are concerns over each country’s rules and regulations. When website providers expand and connect their platform with a global network of business partners and adhere to standardized protocol, the web portal will be able to give comprehensive support.
Though founders’ profiles and past project information are currently available, the platform should also clearly display any fundraising licenses they hold and ratings from past backers to improve their credibility to potential donors. In concert with this, platforms should provide backers with an opportunity to rate their experience with founders they have supported in terms of project execution and results. Ratings collected over time can provide a more complete picture of a founder’s capabilities and direct charitable funds to the most effective use.
On the legal side, we hope to see the development of new laws and regulations that will support borderless fundraising.
Conclusions
We conducted this study using the principles of Futures Research. We interviewed stakeholders and experts, used the Futures Wheel methodology to visualize the future and extract key success factors for donation crowdfunding based on each stakeholder group, and conducted cross-impact analyses. Finally, the future scenarios were determined. Our research results show the key factors of success are as follows; 1) For the websites providers group the three factors are system development, technology, and social partner 2) For the founders group the three factors are founder experience, founder characteristic, and project or campaign 3) For the backers group, the three factors are motivation, satisfaction, and tracking 4) The legal group consisted of two factors, being law and rules. We used the scenarios for each group of stakeholders as a guideline for developing a conceptual framework for the future development of donation crowdfunding framework.
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