Exploring Consumer's Needs and Motivations in Online Social Lending for Development

Abstract

This study is the first in exploring the needs and motivations of those who participate in the social phenomenon of Online Social Lending for Development (OSL4D). OSL4D represents a new form of charity support behavior that has raised numerous important theoretical issues about the evolving nature of charitable giving and the motivation of its participants. A model of lending behavior is proposed. Using data from Kiva.org, the authors consider the different theoretical needs and motivations to participate in social lending and, through content analysis of 1,283 consumer statements from the members of the Team Canada lending team about the reason they lend, conclude that OSL4D consumers are principally intrinsically motivated to make a small difference in the lives of the working poor. Managerial conclusions are offered as well as ideas for future research.

Keywords:

• charitable giving
• donor behavior
• social lending
• Kiva.org
• needs
• motivations
• intrinsic
• extrinsic

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to John B. Ford for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. We would also like to acknowledge the financial support of the Carleton Centre for Community Innovation (3Ci) in creating the custom software used for the data collection.

Notes

1. To create a word cloud on Wordle.net, the process is fairly simple: users go to http://www.wordle.net; paste the selected text into the text box or enter the URL of any blog, blog feed, or other web page; hit the “Submit” button; and get a word cloud. The initial cloud is generated with randomized visual parameters but the user then has the ability to customize according to font, color, and layout. Some common words have been removed from the cloud, such as “can” but were included in the analysis.