Not just the game: The impact of structural gamification on charitable donations

In the digital era, crowdfunding platforms have become the primary avenues for charitable donations, with gamification emerging as a promising tool to nudge donation behavior. However, prior studies have primarily focused on the overall impact of gamification on donation intentions, without distinguishing structural gamification as a distinct form or evaluating its effect on actual monetary contributions. By employing a mixed-methods design, this study focuses on structural gamification and empirically examines its effect, underlying mechanisms, and boundary conditions on charitable donations on crowdfunding platforms. Results show that structural gamification significantly enhances donation amounts, and the effect is mediated by gain, normative, and hedonic goals. For low-involvement donors, all three pathways are activated, while for high-involvement donors, gain and hedonic goals weaken, and the normative pathway becomes negative, indicating that pre-existing engagement diminishes the influence of structural gamification. This study advances the understanding of whether, how, and for whom structural gamification affects charitable donation and provides practical guidance for optimizing platform designs in charitable crowdfunding.