Participatory E-Planning With Civic Crowdfunding

Abstract

Civic crowdfunding, or recruiting participants and collecting financial donations online for local development projects with public benefits, is an increasingly popular method for participatory e-Planning at the neighborhood scale. However, little is known about the donors' backgrounds, project involvement, or social capital outcomes. This article reports on a survey of 154 donors to ten such projects that finds that they are geographically diverse, are older and whiter than the project tracts, report some volunteering activities, and experience modest changes to social capital outcomes. The article discusses implications of the findings, such as how practitioners can ensure inclusion of diverse people and encourages participation among donors, and what future research is needed.