Is "it makes following five-fold contributions" a good expression? [duplicate]

I saw some papers using expressions like "five-fold contributions".

What's the difference between this and "five contributions"?

Which one is better? What are the appropriate scenarios for the word "fold"?

-fold as a suffix implies multiplication, rather than a simple amount. You can compare the term to folding a piece of paper, although the math there is a little different (exponential rather than linear).

So, if you're only saying that someone has made five contributions, then -fold is not appropriate.

However, if they're making five times the contributions that they had made in previous years, then that is when you should say fivefold (as pointed out in the comments, note that it is generally preferred to not use a hyphen⁽¹⁾⁽²⁾).