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As traditional businesses, social companies must have access to resources to finance their day-to-day operations and make the necessary investments to pursue their activities. However, many are not profitable enough to access traditional funding and cannot fund themselves completely through sales or investment. They frequently need special financing approaches. New types of financing have emerged for such enterprises such as crowdfunding. The present research focuses on this modern financing mode available to social entrepreneurs which is constantly expanding and increasingly used. As the role of the social crowdfunding platform is to be an intermediary bringing two parties together, the question of trust is of outmost importance and therefore, social entrepreneurs as well as investors need to trust their intermediary and the information which is available to them. This project aims at clarifying and evaluating the panel of the existing social crowdfunding platforms currently operating in the Belgium landscape and to perform a comparative analysis to deepen one’s knowledge about the communication disclosed (the trust signals) by the platforms in order for their potential users to trust them.
To achieve this, a grid of analysis based on trust signals retrieved from the literature has been elaborated. This grid has been applied to the nine social crowdfunding platforms available in today’s Belgian landscape. It has been observed that the nine platforms decided to communicate rather effectively most of the important visible trust signals. Some communicate more signals than others, but in a general manner, they have many similarities in the way they communicate, and they are consistent with their values and business models. This imply they wish to show their transparency, and desire to communicate about their values and the way they function in an effective manner, to demonstrate both the potential social investors and entrepreneurs that they can trust them. It also suggests it can be quite difficult for the probable users to elect the appropriate social crowdfunding platform in front of these comparable offers. Hence, the platforms should communicate more signals and do so in the most effective manner.
The findings of this study help to extend one’s awareness of the supply of social crowdfunding platforms available today in Belgium. It suggests more clarity and a better understanding of the available landscape for the platform’s users. Moreover, it can also aid the platforms to detect and improve the quality of their communication practices and services. This research can serve to further analyze the phenomenon of social crowdfunding platforms in Belgium that will continue evolving significantly in the coming years. It also presents several limitations such as the observer bias, or the fact the signals chosen may not be complete or appropriate enough, which undoubtably allows suggestions for future research.

social impact crowdfunding --- crowdfunding --- social impact financing --- crowdfunding platforms --- social crowdfunding platforms --- belgium --- social crowdfunding --- social enterprises --- Sciences économiques & de gestion > Economie sociale

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• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

More and more people are looking at the society in a different way and are trying to give meaning to their way of living. New types of enterprises are emerging in our society and a lot of them take the form of cooperative. These kinds of organizations have different needs and perspectives than simply seeking profitability. This thesis aims at understanding these needs and perspectives, but also provide a solution to adapt the SOWECSOM's supply in this changing environment, in order to fit these expectations.

Social Enterprise --- Cooperative --- Dissemination --- Scale Up --- Support --- Change of scale --- Spin out --- Sciences économiques & de gestion > Economie sociale