Consequences of donors’ trust toward project-related information: Impact on charitable crowdfunding propagation in social networks

This paper aims to explore the impact of donors’ trust in project-related information on the dynamic process of charitable crowdfunding propagation in social networks. Firstly, a theoretical model employing the discrete Markov chain and mean field theory is proposed to describe the underlying dynamics of the crowdfunding propagation mechanism, utilizing trust to reveal the corresponding donation behaviors of crowdfunding audiences. Then, a leveraging simulation experiment is conducted to validate the accuracy of the proposed model. The numerical experiments’ results indicate that improving the donors’ trust in project-related information has a more significant impact on crowdfunding propagation than the choice of the social network platform for fund raising. Moreover, achieving success is more feasible through accumulating a substantial amount of social capital than by lengthening the duration of the campaign. Finally, the validity of the model is verified using actual datasets from the Qingsongchou web platform, with relative errors for two projects being only 3% and 7%, respectively. This paper provided novel insights into the internal mechanisms and the dynamic process of crowdfunding, providing initial evidence for what appears to be a crucial and fruitful phenomenon in crowdfunding research.