It is Time to Scale it Up: From Seed Social Ventures to Non-profit Organizations
(A2019-9056)

AUTHORS

Gil Peleg, Ben-Gurion University; Oded Lowengart, Ben-Gurion University; Gal Gutman, Ben-Gurion University; Merav Weiss-Sidi, Ben-Gurion University

KEYWORDS

social ventures; fundraising strategy; donations

ABSTRACT

Seed social ventures’ (SSVs) scale-up requires expansion of impact or size. In order to understand how SSVs scale-up to become well-established social organizations (NPOs), we examined donors’ preference and choice processes at two stages in an organizations’ life. Using simulated crowdfunding choice among several organizations differ by their lifecycle stage, we compared the attributes involved creating preference and choice processes. 403 questionnaires were collected online of US respondents using Prolific. The results enabled us to learn how organizations can adjust appeal strategies to solicit donors throughout the course of their lives. Our results suggest that while NPOs can focus on their reputation when choosing a campaign message, SSVs should focus on their impact for creating preference, but this difference does not hold for choice processes.