WhatsApp and Mobile Money Towards Successful Crowdfunding and Social Change: A Kenyan Case.

Use of WhatsApp as a social media technology and M-pesa, a mobile money service for crowdfunding in Kenya are proliferating at an incredible pace. Crowdfunding helps communities organize for effective participation in social and economic development and empowerment by making sure that members of the community get to benefit from services such as access to social amenities and better infrastructure which would not have been available if the community members were to wait for the government to provide the services. This method is popularly being used at Kisii University for students’ retention and providing social welfare to students, their parents and University staff. The approach adopted by this study was qualitative inductive research, where the researcher had a one-on-one interview session with creators of crowdfunding campaigns and the funders using Skype and phone calls as interview tools were conducted.