This study compiles the main findings in the field of academic research on pure donation-based crowdfunding (DCF) soliciting monetary contributions for charitable causes. To this purpose, a systematic literature review is conducted, resulting in 92 scientific publications analyzed for the first time in this field of research. The prevailing thematic dimensions and research gaps are identified and discussed. The incipient literature on DCF, with a majority of publications from 2015 onward in the form of empirical articles using quantitative methodologies, focuses on antecedents related to individual donors, organizational promoters as main actors, and online channels and design-related features of campaigns as enablers. However, the effects of DCF on relevant stakeholders (particularly beneficiaries and society in general) remain largely obscure. Based on this analysis, an integrated conceptual framework on DCF is proposed to guide future research. This framework, susceptible of empirical evaluation, allows characterizing the DCF as a distinct and emerging type of philanthropic funding model based on specific and novel antecedents, actors, enablers and effects.

This research analyzes the drivers of voluntary transparency in nonprofit organizations (NPOs). Particularly, we assess the influence of key internal and external resource providers—paid staff and business partners—on the extent to which NPOs make accessible relevant information about themselves for public scrutiny on a voluntary basis. First, we conceptualize transparency as one of the critical dimensions of accountability and explain how it has become a key issue for NPOs. Second, we discuss professionalization and business–nonprofit partnerships as business-oriented strategies directly connected to the main challenges (and controversies) NPOs face. Third, following institutional theory as core theoretical framework, we propose a set of hypotheses linking those strategies to transparency. Their influence will be measured through an empirical research based on a survey to a representative sample of 325 NPOs. Regression analysis and probit models will be used to test the hypotheses. The results confirm the positive effects of both professionalization and partnerships, although each strategy influences different dimensions of transparency.

The hybrid nature of social enterprises gives them a high potential for developing social innovations, but at the same time leads to tensions within these organizations. The barriers they face to gain access to traditional sources of funding are pushing social enterprises to reinforce their business models and rely more on commercial activities, and this fact increases the risk of mission drift and can weaken accountability towards beneficiaries of the social mission in favor of dominant stakeholders such as funders or clients of the commercial activities. Our research attempts to analyze whether partnerships between social enterprises and nonprofits strengthen accountability to beneficiaries without hindering accountability to other stakeholders, thus allowing both social and economic objectives to operate together. Based on a survey with a sample of social enterprises partnering with nonprofits, results reveal that as the partnership moves along a collaboration continuum to a transformational stage, accountability to beneficiaries is encouraged, whereas accountability to other types of stakeholders is also improved or, at least, not affected.