Dear all,
I am writing to get your advice on my thesis data analysis.

I am analyzing what factors affect how much funding crowdfunding projects can attract. In my data, I have 125 projects and 10 pairs of these projects are created by the same creator (in total, 115 unique creators). So 10 creators in my data created 2 projects.
All my IVs are at project level though, i.e., duration of the campaign, # of funders, etc., even the tenure of creators is at project level since they will be different for every project. DV is at project level as well, i.e., how much money each project can attract.
Do you see a reason I should control creator effect? I ran a null in Spss with mixed model. I put creatorID in "subjects", and DV at the DV. Is this the right way to run null model in SPSS? If yes, the ICC calculated from covariance estimate is 75%, which I have a hard time to comprehend. 92% of creators have 1 projects, and 8% creators (10) have 10 projects, it is hard to believe that grouping has such a big effect.

Also if I need to run a mixed model to control for creator effect, do I just include creatorID as "subject" or "random effects" in SPSS mixed model?
Thanks for any tip.

Best,

Li