Finding Receptive Donors: Unpacking the Dynamics of Social Influence in Large‐Scale Political Donor Networks

ABSTRACT Although previous studies tend to emphasize the role of influencers in donation campaigns, this study shifts attention to focus on influencees, namely donors who are highly receptive to the influence of others within local social networks. We integrated insights from social influence research with that of the COM‐B model and examined the distribution of influencees in eight donor populations. In addition, we examined how donors' capabilities, opportunities, and motivations influence their propensity to be influencees. We found that across eight mutually exclusive donor networks, about 10% of donors can be classified as influencees and they, on average, donate two to 10 times more than other donors. Our analysis consistently demonstrated that donors with extensive connections and those associated with tightly interconnected clusters were more inclined to be influencees. Social influence was clearly present and played a large role for these influencees. Additionally, both the capability and motivation of donors played crucial roles in accurately pinpointing the most receptive individuals to social influence. Notably, disparities were observed among different racial groups. Overall, models that integrated all three sets of COM‐B factors exhibited superior predictive performance.