Donors to crowdfunding efforts are slightly younger, less religious, and more likely to be single than those who give through traditional channels, a report from the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at IUPUI finds.

Based on a survey of more than fifteen hundred U.S. households conducted in September 2020, the report, Charitable Crowdfunding: Who Gives, to What, and Why? (24 pages, PDF), found that while 91.5 percent of survey respondents were aware of the existence of crowdfunding platforms, 46 percent said they gave to charity but not to crowdfunding campaigns. A quarter (25.3 percent) of respondents gave to both charity and crowdfunding efforts, while 6.4 percent gave only to crowdfunding campaigns.

Funded in part by Facebook, the report also found that crowdfunding donors, on average, gave less than traditional donors ($1,539 vs. $1,859), were younger (44.2 years vs. 49.9 years), were less likely to attend religious services regularly (32.3 percent vs. 43.2 percent), had slightly lower household incomes ($241,427 vs. $248,974), and were less likely to be married (54.5 percent vs. 61.2 percent). While the differences are not statistically significant, the report's authors note that the crowdfunding donor pool is slightly more diverse, with Asian-American, Black, and Latinx donors accounting for 2 percent, 12 percent, and 17 percent of all crowdfunding donors, compared with 1.2 percent, 10.9 percent, and 15.7 percent of traditional donors.

Read the full article about crowdfunding donors at Philanthropy News Digest.