Who trusts medical crowdfunding? An empirical investigation in China

Trust has been identified in previous studies as a key factor in determining online users’ participation in crowdfunding. Today, millions of people donate to medical crowdfunding projects via the Internet, but we know very little about human behavior related to which specific users of medical crowdfunding actually trust the projects they donate to. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether gender, age, educational level and income level of online users affect their perception of trust in medical crowdfunding. Data for the study were collected through an online survey from 15 September to 15 November 2019 and samples of 393 medical crowdfunding donors from China were used and analyzed. Significant differences in levels of trusting behavior were found across gender, age, educational level and income level in medical crowdfunding. Our findings indicate that male, younger, lower educational level, higher income level funders are more inclined to trust the project of medical crowdfunding. The paper is one of the first to investigate the type of online donors to medical crowdfunding and their perception of trust in China. The findings provide important theoretical and practical implications.