Crowdfunding sustainable entrepreneurship: What are the characteristics of crowdfunding investors?

By addressing the financing gap for sustainable entrepreneurs, crowdfunding holds great potential to tackle environmental and social issues. Characterizing the target group of crowdfunding projects can enhance their funding success because a higher number of supporters can be attracted. Still, little knowledge is available about the types of supporters who invest in sustainability-oriented crowdfunding projects. Therefore, this study identifies such supporters’ socio-demographic characteristics and individual values based on Schwartz’s theory of basic human values. Drawing on a data set of 282 respondents from the German population, the typical supporter of sustainability-oriented crowdfunding projects is young, well-educated, familiar with crowdfunding and holds low levels of self-enhancement and conservative values. Based on these insights, recommendations are made for project initiators, as well as platform providers, which include specifically targeting younger, well-educated individuals with rather liberal and less-conservative values.