From Mecenatism to crowdfunding: engagement and identification in cultural-creative projects

The aim of the research is to analyse the behaviours of potential micro-investors and their willingness to participate in crowdfunding campaigns to sustain cultural and creative projects. The author proposes a quantitative approach, through a first exploratory survey and second an experimental design. This experiment designed alternative crowdfunding schemes and posted them online to solicit behaviours by the potential crowdfunders. The vast majority of respondents would contribute to projects with minimum amounts of crowdfunding, whatever the economic model adopted, or even not bring any financial contribution. This methodology puts in evidence that content variables and context variables are important. The results show that crowdfunding is a viable model to overcome the public expenditure liabilities related to the valorization of cultural heritage, given that specific conditions are satisfied. First, risk perceptions must be mitigated with full disclosure of information. Second, two clusters of potential crowdfunders can be engaged using different approaches.