Crowdfunding for Social Entrepreneurship: A Systematic Review of the Literature

This paper aims to analyse the literature on social entrepreneurship and crowdfunding to summarise existing themes and highlight future directions for research. The extant literature on the topic is quite fragmented, therefore we seek to identify common and unifying themes and highlight recent research trends and corresponding gaps. The systematic literature review has been conducted using the Scopus database and an open-ended time frame. Based on our analysis, four main research themes can be identified in the literature: (1) the benefits of crowdfunding for social entrepreneurial ventures; (2) the determinants of crowdfunding success for social entrepreneurial ventures; (3) the contribution of social entrepreneurial ventures financed via crowdfunding to the economy and society; and (4) the challenges of crowdfunding platforms focused on the financing of social entrepreneurial ventures. This study provides a summary of the most used theoretical frameworks in the business and management literature on crowdfunding and social ventures and proposes a number of avenues for future research.