Unfolding crowd-based accountability of a charity fund during the war

• In Event: Financial Sustainability and Influence During Conflict

Abstract

Accountability demands on non-governmental organizations exceed those in other organizations; with charities as an NGO subset receiving most attention (Cordery et al., 2019). Extensive research argues that charities focus too much on formal, hierarchical forms of accountability rather than informal accountability to a broader group of stakeholders (Chu and Luke, 2022; Cordery et al., 2019; Cordery and Sim, 2016; Ebrahim, 2003; 2016). When crises and conflicts lead to the collapse of structured, hierarchical funding, charities seeking to address natural- and human-made disasters become increasingly dependent on diverse stakeholders (McGregor-Lowndes, 2023). While diverse stakeholders change accountability, we know little of the expectations of charity accountability during crises and conflicts.

Our research focuses on a conflict-filled human-made disaster – the Russia-Ukraine war – to understand charity accountability. We examine a charity fund that depends on crowd-based donations to achieve its mission of supporting the Ukrainian army’s needs and war victim’s humanitarian needs. Using social media (SM), the Fund gathered record donations (over USD 110 million in 2022), providing an ideal case to examine alternative forms of informal, crowd-based accountability. We examine two research questions:
RQ1: Does SM pressure charities to discharge accountability for crowd-based funding?
RQ2: How does crowd-based accountability change when charities engage seriously in accountability dialogue?
This research uses a netnographic methodology (Kozinets, 2002; Jeacle, 2020; Goncharenko, 2019), and interview data to investigate how public SM engagement reconfigures a charity’s accountability during wartime. SM enabled crowds to question and critique the charity’s accountability, generating a crowd-based accountability dialogue to which the charity needed to respond. Consequently, the charity evolved dialogic accountability processes between the crowd, the charity and its celebrity founder, the latter playing a mediating role in the charity’s dialogue with the crowd.

The findings indicate how the war context changes and challenges our common understanding of charity accountability, disclosure and reporting. We find online publics demand crowd-based accountability as dialogue, thus building on prior literature signaling the internet’s co-creation possibilities. These allow NGOs to engage with stakeholders more intensely than traditional media permits (e.g. Briones et al., 2011). SM fundraising platforms enhance charities’ resourcing options through domestic and international transfers (Hoffmann and Otteby, 2018); SM also presents an arena for engaging stakeholders and discharging accountability (Bellucci and Manetti, 2017; Contri et al., 2023; Waters et al., 2009). An on-line presence provides immediacy and directness, gathers support in challenging environments (Provasnek et al., 2018), but potentially also offers outlets for uncontrolled anger, protest and vilification (Armitage, 2001).

A particularly significant facet of this study concerns the highly sensitized context of a modern war where, despite the exigencies faced, donors expect constant and active SM accountability. By illustrating the transition of the charity’s accountability before and one year after the full-scale war – from chaotic and limited accountability to ‘obliged crowd-based accountability’ – we discover a new (unusual) space for dialogic accountability. Charities, other NGOs and governments can learn from this use of SM as a crowd-based accountability tool to enable real dialogue during significant crises and conflicts (in our case, the Russo-Ukrainian war).

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Authors

• Carolyn Cordery, Victoria University of NZ

• Valeriya Melnyk, Nord University Business School

• Olga Iermolenko, Nord University Business School