Introduction

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities often relate a company’s obligations to its community such as by various forms of company involvement in charities and nonprofit activities. However, CSR is not merely regarded as a cost center or a charitable deed, but rather it can be a source of opportunity, innovation, and competitive advantage (Porter and Kramer, 2006). CSR behavior can result in a variety of company benefits, such as a more favorable evaluation of the company, which is generally associated with firms’ CSR ratings (Albinger and Freeman, 2000; Peterson, 2004). CSR can have positive direct and indirect effects on the firm’s profitability especially in the form of donations. CSR activities can help increase both customer purchases through customer-corporate identification and customer donations to corporate-supported not-for-profit activities. In this sense, CSR activities not only offer the opportunity for firms to improve sales performance and customer value but also to raise funds as part of corporate social activities. The latter can be examined in terms of donation-based crowdfunding as a means for firms to leverage CSR activities through fundraising. Donation-based crowdfunding is a finance technology platform designed to raise funds by microfinancing, donations, and social activities. Crowdfunding activities are aimed at mobilizing crowds to finance projects posted by their supporters, both on a personal page and on sites dedicated to fundraising in bulk. The funding can cover yield exchange or project revenues, gifts, or just a donation. Managers can take advantage of donation-based crowdfunding to maximize their company’s CSR activities and donation-based financing. The synergy from socially driven corporate and crowdfunding activities can be a significant source of funding while fulfilling social goals. Yet, few empirical studies have examined the extent to which different CSR activities and their effectiveness of donationbased crowdfunding particularly in the context of Indonesia and Southeast Asia. Crowdfunding provides an alternative way to raise funds from ‘‘crowds’’ for various social activities. The collaboration of CSR activities with crowdfunding has the potential to change the traditional landscape of CSR in terms of funding and stakeholder involvement in CSR initiatives and activities (Giudici et al., 2012). In a case study of the banking sector in Greece, Spanos (2016) shows that CSR strategy incorporates crowdfunding activities facilitated by mobile social media applications. Ryua and Kimb (2016) suggest that the behavior of sponsors in crowdfunding is a new form of e-commerce cocreation. Baeck et al. (2012) find that, when investors are more instrumental in automating the process of due diligence and funding, crowdfunding can reduce transaction costs in obtaining capital and create cheaper financing for entrepreneurs. Crowdfunding also allows project owners to access funding by engagement inherent in a product that is more personalized, so that a greater willingness to provide financing with more favorable terms, while allowing the process to be less expensive than engagement with funders and donors geographically. Crowdfunding users often comment on the ideas of others, thus creating rich interaction and innovative thinking that is very useful for society (Belleflamme et al., 2013). In the context of Southeast Asia, crowdfunding from multiple platforms have been reported to experience rapid growth with a total volume of funds of US$83.88 million raised between 2013 and 2015 in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines (Zhang et al., 2016).