Charitable giving and cognitive ability

• This paper presents the first detailed examination of the relationship between cognitive ability and charitable giving using both cross‐sectional and longitudinal analysis. Data from a nationally representative, longitudinal survey of U.S. adults over age 50 indicated that higher cognitive ability—measured through a variety of cognitive tests—was associated with a higher probability of charitable giving, even after controlling for such intervening mechanisms as age, income, wealth, health, and education. This was true in comparisons both across different people at one point in time and within the same persons at different points in time. Understanding this relationship may affect the content and timing of appropriate charitable marketing approaches and help to explain other associations found in previous research on charitable giving.

Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Are religious people more caring? Exploring the impact of religiosity on charitable organizations in a developing country

• The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of religiosity on reasons that individuals volunteer. Additionally, this study will investigate the pro‐social attitudes towards helping others and charitable organizations. This study focuses on Indonesia where religion plays an important role in daily life. The data were derived from a convenience sampling at a large private university in Surabaya, Indonesia (N = 258). The results showed that individuals with high intrinsic and extrinsic personal religiosity were more likely to have ‘other‐oriented’ reasons when performing philanthropic activities. Nonetheless, religiosity did not influence attitudes of individuals towards helping others. This study contributes to the debate regarding the effect of religious values on pro‐social attitudes in the context of a developing country. Furthermore, the study provides social implications for researchers, policy makers and practitioners operating in a developing country. This is one of the first few studies exploring the impact of religion on attitude towards charitable organization in Indonesia.

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The giving standard: conditional cooperation in the case of charitable giving

• In this study, we make a first attempt to investigate the mechanisms of conditional cooperation in giving outside experiments, using retrospective survey data on charitable giving (the Giving the Netherlands Panel Study 2005 (GINPS05, 2005 ; N = 1474)). Our results show that in the case of door‐to‐door donations, social information affects perceived social norms for giving and, through this perception, influences the level of actual donations. The effect of social information on actual door‐to‐door donations is fully mediated by perceived social norms for giving. Furthermore, we found empirical support for the giving standard hypothesis. People in different income categories donate roughly the same amounts in separate instances (they use the same social information), and as a result people in lower income households donate a higher percentage of their income to charitable organizations.

Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The diversification of charities: from religion‐oriented to for‐profit‐oriented fundraising

• Charities are increasingly relying on more complex and diversified fundraising structures to raise funds and attract benefactors. In adopting a historic perspective, this research identified five emergent fundraising structures, namely religion‐oriented, business‐oriented, marketing‐oriented, consumer‐oriented, and for‐profit‐oriented. The analysis critically evaluates the role that institutions and resources have played in each funding structure and draws conclusions concerning the management of charitable fundraising in a world where charitable fundraising, consumerism, and social media networking are increasingly entwined with the for‐profit motive.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cause‐related marketing campaigns with luxury firms: An experimental study of campaign characteristics,attitudes, and donations

• Cause‐related marketing (CRM) partnerships between luxury firms and charitable organizations have grown in popularity, yet no study has examined such luxury CRM campaigns thus far. Using a fictitious campaign by the Hotel Adlon Kempinski Berlin and the Plan International Germany charity, the authors conducted an experimental CRM study among 281 actual luxury consumers. Realizing CRM campaigns in the luxury segment can be promising for luxury firms and charities. In particular, a CRM campaign works best when the donation magnitude is high (25% vs. 1%) and the price of the luxury service offering is moderate (€180 vs. €450). Furthermore, luxury campaigns enhance the attitudes of luxury customers toward charitable organizations, especially if they are unknown brands. Yet this study also offers a warning that luxury campaigns can be risky if consumers who have previously supported the charitable organization perceive the campaign as too high profile. Ultimately, this study reveals that CRM luxury campaigns play a major role for fundraising success.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Venture capitalists and entrepreneurs become venture philanthropists

• Non‐traditional charitable sources of revenue may be categorised as follows:
  • Venture philanthropy: Human resources and funding invested as donation in the charity by entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, trusts and corporations in search of a social return on their investment. It involves high engagement over many years with fixed milestones and tangible returns and exit achieved by developing alternative, sustainable income.
  • Commercial ventures: They seek a financial return on investment by creating a social enterprise operated by charities and their trading/holding companies alone or in partnership with the corporate sector, venture capitalists or investors to provide funding. Venture philanthropists may also ‘invest’ without establishing an equity position in the commercial enterprise. Any profits are re‐directed to mission‐related activity, although the business activity may or may not be mission related.
  • Social venture capital: It funds commercial ventures (as above) but may not seek a complete return on investment; instead the investor may off set some or all of the investment against social outcomes.
• Within the context of venture philanthropy, this paper demonstrates how charities, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs may work together in strategic alliances. It explores venture philanthropy from the perspective of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, giving examples. Charities are shown how to prepare themselves to take advantage of these entrepreneurial opportunities.
• Although the emphasis in this paper is on venture philanthropy, the processes outlined may be used to help a charity take advantage of opportunities within the broader social entrepreneurial context. Successful venture capitalists and entrepreneurs have demonstrated the ability to turn outline business ideas into big results, frequently in highly competitive business environments.
• A common characteristic that appears to unite these individuals when they divert their interest toward social ventures is a desire to apply their business‐like approach, which includes planning processes, milestones and outcome measurement to their social venture activity.

Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ageing's raging savings debate

• ? Demographic changes have played a crucial role in pushing savings rates up and real rates down in the advanced economies. Despite some voices to the contrary, we think such forces will remain in place for many years to come.
• ? For such a predictable process, it's amazing that the economic implications of ageing are so hotly debated. Ageing affects everyone's lifetime savings decisions and has an impact on macroeconomic variables through several direct and indirect channels, the strength of which varies over time.
• ? The impact of ageing on savings depends on interpreting two distinct long‐term drivers. On the one hand, aggregate savings may start to fall as the baby‐boomer “bulge” in advanced economies transitions from the peak period of saving to the phase of lower saving in retirement.
• ? On the other hand, rising life expectancy should lead individuals to save more during their working lives or wait longer to retire. Greater labour market participation by those close to the official retirement age suggests that rising life expectancy is already leading many to remain in the workforce for longer – a trend that is likely to continue.
• ? Accounting for ageing and rising life expectancy together, we find there will be no major decline in savings even as the elderly's share of the population rises further.
• ? The impact on future real interest rates will, if anything, be negative. Comprehensive studies have reached a similar conclusion, taking into account the impact of demographic changes on savings, investment and other factors affecting real interest rates.
• ? Ageing populations may be complicating the escape from low global inflation. Crosscountry evidence suggests older populations may prefer lower inflation. As societies in advanced economies continue age, there is a downside risk to the long‐term outlook for inflation and bond yields.

     

Brewed for decades: Cyprus' perfect financial storm

• The Cypriot banking catastrophe was a momentous point in economic history at which a tiny island suffered such acute financial distress that it shook the entire Eurozone. Here we trace how Cyprus go to that point, via a series of mishaps and misjudgements, and missed escape routes going back over four decades.
• Cyprus will go down in history as one of the closest there has ever been to a perfect storm of financial instability, brewed from terrible decisions by its banks, supervisors and politicians; compounded by rotten luck and bad timing. Even Cyprus’ political and financial strengths made things worse by delaying firm action and allowing losses to build. Most imaginable horrors that could happen to a banking system did happen, and that was even before the controversial and partially botched international rescue operation.
• It was an international crisis in many senses of the word. The crisis was hosted in Cyprus, massively escalated by events in Greece, and paid for in large part by Russian depositors.
• There are lessons for Greece, but the experiences also have important differences. Crucially, there was a strong constituency in Cyprus to support painful austerity and structural reforms necessary to get rid of capital controls. That does not exist in Greece.
• The dramatic unfolding of events on the night of 15 March 2013 also provides a lesson that was not heeded in Greece. All‐night negotiating sessions against hard‐deadlines tend to lead to highly flawed agreements, though they are also a symptom of such commitment to the euro that things might work out in spite of the flaws.

     

Pledger modelling: Help the Aged case study

• The recruitment of pledgers (as a proxy for potential legators) to charitable organisations plays a vital role in their continued success, and as a percentage of all fundraising income generated it can represent substantial proportions. However, of all the ‘donation asks’ made of supporters, asking for a legacy is the most difficult. Therefore, it is important that the target audience should be as well researched and highly targeted as possible.
• Help the Aged had reached the stage where decisions need to be made about its future marketing in order to protect longer-term income. The findings of this legacy targeting project were to feed into communication programmes, direct marketing, and the overall legacy marketing strategy.
• The key objective was to identify the best prospects to mail a legacy ask to, across the supporter database, with the likelihood that they are going to pledge as a result.
• It was found that whilst tailored data analysis comes at a price, the average value of a legacy justifies the cost of using sophisticated targeting tools. However, because of the pledge-to-legacy time lapse, there will always be issues with measuring any long-term return on investment (ROI). Nonetheless, pledgers have to be taken on their word for the purpose of testing (and subsequent rollouts). Pledge data should be tested and the outcomes should inform legacy marketing. However, as mentioned above, pledgers necessarily need to be taken on their word and therefore, formulating models based on the type and/or value of pledges is not recommended.

Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Money donations intentions among Muslim donors: an extended theory of planned behavior model

• The investigation into determinants of money donation intentions while employing an extended theory of planned behavior model is limited to developed country contexts. However, given the challenges facing charitable organizations and scant theoretical evidence from developing world, such an examination can contribute pragmatically. The current study establishes the impact of subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, past behavior, and attitude on respondents' money donation intentions to charities in Pakistan. The respondents (N = 223), a non‐student population living in the city of Gujranwala, completed a survey. The collected data are analyzed by means of a multivariate analysis, which was comprised of regression and correlation. The results reveal a strong support to the extended theory of planned behavior model in establishing the relationship between identified independent and dependent variables in a developing country context of Pakistan. The study contributes to the establishment of a few strategies, which are useful for managers working in charitable organizations to attract and retain donors to support several causes.

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Developing personal attachment to a physically active charity event

• Given the commonplace of physically active charity events, it is increasingly important for charitable organizations to understand how participants form personal attachments to their events so that marketers can maximize the amount of funds raised and achieve an attractive return on marketing expenditures. This exploratory study examines the ways in which participants at a walk/run for multiple sclerosis form personal attachments to the event. The limited work that has been conducted in this area has focused on cycling events, which may not include all types of participants (e.g., people with physical restrictions tied to the cause) and their experiences. Data were collected through an online questionnaire that employed open‐ended qualitative questions. The findings suggest three ways in which participants form attachments to the event, including being known as a fundraiser, aligning self and cause, and developing social bonds.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Determinants of charitable donation intentions: a structural equation model

• Currently charities have to depend more on individual donors and less on the government for funding. Hence, understanding the individual donor and what motivates them to contribute to charities is something, which has been of increasing interest to nonprofit marketers. In this article, a path model for the charitable donation process of a religious individual is developed and tested. The variables that are used in the model are religiosity, attitude towards helping others (AHO), attitude towards charitable organizations (ACO), attitude towards the advertisement (Attad) and behavioral intentions (BI). The results suggest that AHO by itself does not cause BI. Altruistic people need to be targeted with an appropriate advertisement message. Since religiosity is an important causal variable for AHO, segmenting and targeting individuals who are religious would be pertinent. Attempts to build favorable ACO would also be worthwhile.
• Religiosity
• Charitable donation intentions
• Charity advertisements.
• Path model for predicting intentions to donate.

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Volunteerism,compassion and religiosity as drivers of donations practices

• The topic of donations is one of high relevance and has been widely covered in contemporary marketing literature. It is a topic of interest to both theoreticians and practitioners alike, particularly due to its implicit links to fundraising activities and research. The reality of what makes an individual donor ultimately part with his money and give it away to a nonprofit organization is a hot contemporary topic. This study looks into the role of religiosity as a predictor of donations practices. Also volunteerism and compassion, two acts of pro‐social behaviour are analysed as predictors of donations practices. Using data collected from a survey of 612 charity donors in Portugal, the results show unequivocally that religiosity does influence donations practices, and so being a predictor of donations practices. Moreover, pro‐social behaviour is a predictor of donations practices when in the case of volunteerism, but not in the form of compassion.
• The findings are particularly useful for nonprofit organizations that want to attract and retain individual charitable donors and may also help to increase donation regularity, to obtain higher amounts, and donations both to religious and to secular organizations. Finally, it can be stated that the understanding of religiosity sheds light on knowledge about donations practices, and that this study also makes an important contribution to academia, as it is the first study conducted in Portugal that assesses the drivers of donations practices.

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Perceived value of corporate donations: an empirical investigation

• There is current recognition that value is the fundamental basis for all marketing activities. The present research provides an empirical examination of perceptions of value within the voluntary sector and specifically donations made by organisations towards the funding of charitable projects. The impact of a number of charity and project‐related variables on the formation of value and the corresponding effect of value on satisfaction and behavioural variables are examined.
• The results support claims that past experience with and information about a charity as well as information about a specific project are significant determinants of value. However, the impact of these constructs is differential between the two components of value (i.e. get/benefits and give/sacrifices). We confirm the significant effect of value on satisfaction and indicate that satisfaction and benefits derived from a donation have a direct impact on behavioural intention.

Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Psychological distancing: the effects of narrative perspectives and levels of access to a victim's inner world on victim blame and helping intention

• To explore what is an (in)effective way to tell victim stories in order to elicit support for charitable causes, an experiment was conducted to examine how narrative perspectives (first‐person versus third‐person) and levels of access to a victim's inner world (high versus low) may influence reactions to the victim. It found that the two factors interacted to influence victim blame and helping intention through affecting the perceived psychological distance of the victim. Specifically, the first‐person (versus third‐person) narrative increased victim blame and reduced helping intention by motivating participants to distance themselves from the victim when the level of access to the victim's inner world was relatively high but not when the level of access was relatively low. The findings contribute to our understanding of what would be an (in)effective way of telling victim stories to elicit compassionate reactions to those in need.

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Individualism/collectivism,charitable giving,and cause‐related marketing: a comparison of Chinese and Americans

• With the global expansion of cause‐related marketing (CRM), advertisers need to know whether and how cultural and societal differences impact attitude toward CRM across markets. To add to that knowledge, the present study identifies two consumer traits, that is, individualism/collectivism and perception of individual charitable giving as a social norm, and investigates and compares their influence on attitude toward CRM. By conducting surveys with Chinese and American samples, the present study found that gender, horizontal collectivism (HC), and perception of individual charitable giving as a social norm were significantly associated with attitude toward CRM in the American sample, whereas horizontal individualism, HC, and vertical collectivism were significant predictors of attitude toward CRM in the Chinese sample. Theoretically, these findings suggest that associations between one cultural dimension and the attitude toward CRM are independent to relationships involving other dimensions. And the particular circumstance of a local market may determine which consumer traits will actually have a significant association with attitude toward CRM. Practically, the findings suggest that advertisers may want to choose social causes that have national impact in China because there is a tendency of achieving egoistic enhancement through individual charitable giving whereas social causes that are relevant to female consumers are better strategic choices in the USA.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cause‐related marketing and customer donations in an online marketplace

• eBay for Charity provides mechanisms for embedding charitable fundraising and donations into the UK's largest online marketplace, with 18 million unique visitors each month. This paper explores some of our findings concerning the impact of charitable activity on the behaviour of those who participate, including buyers, sellers, and the charities themselves, and suggests ways these findings could be applied to other forms of online fundraising in the future.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Health Effects of Air Pollution: A Statistical Review

We critically review and compare epidemiological designs and statistical approaches to estimate associations between air pollution and health. More specifically, we aim to address the following questions:

• 1 Which epidemiological designs and statistical methods are available to estimate associations between air pollution and health?
• 2 What are the recent methodological advances in the estimation of the health effects of air pollution in time series studies?
• 3 What are the the main methodological challenges and future research opportunities relevant to regulatory policy?

In question 1, we identify strengths and limitations of time series, cohort, case‐crossover and panel sampling designs. In question 2, we focus on time series studies and we review statistical methods for: 1) combining information across multiple locations to estimate overall air pollution effects; 2) estimating the health effects of air pollution taking into account of model uncertainties; 3) investigating the consequences of exposure measurement error in the estimation of the health effects of air pollution; and 4) estimating air pollution‐health exposure‐response curves. Here, we also discuss the extent to which these statistical contributions have addressed key substantive questions. In question 3, within a set of policy‐relevant‐questions, we identify research opportunities and point out current data limitations.     

DECISION-MAKING IN CONDITIONS OF EXTREME UNCERTAINTY

In the last few years management has been forced to take decisions in conditions of extreme uncertainty. One consequence of this has been an increase in the use of formal methods of analysis in major decision problems. This paper describes some observations on how companies were handling decision-making under uncertainty, made during a S.S.R.C. sponsored research project on the influence of computer methods in planning and decision-making, viz.

• 1 Managers were consciously handling uncertainty by evaluating their major decisions in the light of several possible alternative forecasts.
• 2 Statistical decision theory was not used because, though in theory it was ideally suited for this situation, in practice management had the following objections to the use of this technique: (a) It assumed an accuracy of subjective probability estimates which was unrealistic in real life. (b) It required the use of artificial criteria of choice which were totally unacceptable to senior management. (c) It over-simplified the decision-making process.
• 3 In the thirty-two companies visited, management was using a systems analysis approach to decision-making involving the use of decision trees to structure the decision. Thereafter, instead of carrying out a probalistic analysis, a full evaluation to determine the quantitative and qualitative results would be carried out for each feasible path though the tree. This would be followed by an iterative elimination process.
• 4 Management were also endeavouring to cope with uncertainty by being more adaptive and flexible in their decision-making and are developing contingency or ‘fall-back’ strategies. Plans were not looked on as rigid blue-prints, but more as loosely linked frameworks of decision trees with the actual path through the decision tree dependent on future events.

     

Segmenting university alumni using a person‐centered methodology

Higher education leaders in the United States increasingly rely on relationships with alumni to advance multiple institutional goals. Scholars have traditionally relied on variable‐centered approaches to understand associations among alumni experiences, personal attributes, and support behaviors. Departing from this tradition, this study draws on a person‐centered approach, latent class analysis, to segment groups of alumni by their non‐monetary support behaviors. We define non‐monetary support as engaging in actions outside of charitable giving that advance institutional objectives. Drawing on past literature, we conceptualize alumni non‐monetary support behaviors as falling into 4 categories: (a) volunteerism: charitable preferences, (b) political advocacy: social change preferences, (c) multimode engagement: charity and social change, and (d) disengagement: nonsupport. Relying on an alumni survey from a research‐intensive university in the United States, our analysis found support for a 4‐class model of alumni supporters and nonsupporters. These groupings include the classes of Political Advocates, Apolitical Recruiters, Super Engaged Alumni, and Disengaged Alumni. Using cross‐tabulation analysis, we explore attributes of each class by age, gender, and involvement in religious, political, and volunteer organizations in college. We find that groups of alumni exhibit the same patterns of engagement while they were students. For example, students who were engaged in political action in college are those who are likely to become Political Engagers as alumni. Students who volunteered in college and stayed clear of politics emerge as Apolitical Recruiters after college. Super Engaged Alumni are those who were engaged in multiple domains in college. Implications for advancement practice are discussed.