Build your city! - Engaging citizens in crowdfunding projects

Crowdfunding has become an increasingly popular financing instrument. Research in the field of crowdfunding mainly focusses on broadening access to finance for businesses, in particular young and innovative companies and SMEs. Our study looks beyond the potential of crowdfunding for businesses and focuses on crowdfunding as a digital government strategy. Applying insights from the literature on relationship marketing, donation behavior and crowdfunding, we develop a structural model which contains trust towards a city, commitment towards a city and the intention to fund a crowdfunding project initiated by a city as its core elements. Based on an online survey, we find that trust towards a city has a positive impact on commitment towards a city and that commitment towards a city has a positive impact on the intention to contribute to a city’s crowdfunding campaign. Certain benefits individuals perceive during a crowdfunding campaign (demonstrable, familial and societal benefits) have a positive impact on the commitment towards a city. Finally, communication has a positive impact on trust towards a city. Our study contributes to the literature on digital government, crowdfunding and relationship marketing and has practical implications. From our results, we derive specific recommendations for cities.