Social Movements against Racial Discrimination and Minority Entrepreneurship in Crowdfunding

Abstract

Racial discrimination on crowdfunding platforms makes it harder for minority entrepreneurs to access early-stage capital. Social movements like BLM mitigate racial bias and may promote minority entrepreneurship. However, it is unclear what the specific impacts of BLM on minority start-ups, especially the spillover effects on crowdfunding activities. We conduct a large-scale computational study leveraging a complete dataset from Kickstarter and employ multiple methods. We identified the founders' race and whether the project’s nature is connected to minorities. We find evidence from both the demand and supply sides, indicating that the BLM movement did promote minority entrepreneurship on crowdfunding platforms. We also find some interesting changes in backers' behavior. Significant contributions are made by linking the social movement and racial discrimination literature to a body of IS research on entrepreneurship in crowdfunding.