Managing Social Media P2p Fundraising
(A2023-113968)

AUTHORS

Christian Schlereth, WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management; Beatrice Martin, RWTH Aachen; Bernd Skiera, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany

ABSTRACT

Social media peer-to-peer (p2p) fundraising enables social media users to serve as organizers of fundraising campaigns that ask their friends to donate to the organizer’s preferred non-profit organization. So far, we know little about how non-profit organizations should manage this novel channel. We examine the role of organizer engagement within a campaign and study whether saying thank you to the organizer, a cost-effective action for the non-profit organization, can encourage organizer engagement to increase fundraiser success. Using transactional data and field experiments, we provide novel practical insights for non-profit organizations. We also contribute to theory by studying the impact of expressions of gratitude in a novel setting and assessing its monetary value.